March 13, 2005
Main Street
This investigation was quite special for the SPIRITS for in this case, there was no true contact between the SPIRITS team and reports of phenomena.
It started when one of the homeowners discovered that her co-worker was on the SPIRITS team. Excited, she reported that she owned a home that was supposed to be haunted. However, she had not lived within it; she and her husband rented it out. It was the renters who reported phenomena to them. With a small window of time between tenants, the SPIRITS gathered quickly to see what they could discover about this old house.
The home, itself, was quite incredible. It was a century old and hand built by a family of true Southern Floridians. Its beautiful structure was immediately attractive and its historic nature apparent.
Though the homeowners turned off the power to the home at the fuse box, the Trifield EMF meter still registered a low-grade field emanating from the area. Despite a very low register on the 0-3 scale, this EMF meter continued to fluctuate with small spikes of energy.
Sensitives also picked up a weak male presence within the home. He was a strange character. His presence was weak but consistent throughout the home, and grew stronger in the area of the living room/kitchen and main bedroom.
At about this time, equipment began to act up. One member’s digital camera took a series of “dark” images in one corner of the living room. Members speculated that it was possibly due to the diffused light and the distance of the beam sent out by the camera; however, another member who took a shot of the area captured a beautiful white orb.
It was time for members to talk of their experiences; with the homeowners present the SPIRITS members described their experiences. Sensitives were befuddled by the images the entity sent; male, middle aged, related to the land, and associated with fire. He was several generations old but had little concept of time. And there was that strange elaborate headgear described as a turban by one and a headdress by another. Lastly, it seemed that he was either of a Native American origin or possibly came from another country.
During the interview, the discussion turned to a cubby area that the ghost liked, and the upstairs bedroom where a strange set of floor panels indicated some form of construction to the room. Three members of the group went up to investigate while the remainder remained downstairs. The sensitive downstairs called up to the rest that the entity was up there with them. One member climbed up into the attic with a camera; as he took pictures he had the sense that there was someone with him upstairs, leaning over him. He took several more shots, and then closed the attic. The downstairs group called up that the entity was bored; everyone returned to the living room.
The downstairs group immediately reported that the entity had taken an interest in those upstairs and was “looking over their shoulders” as if to see what was so fascinating to us. The timing of the activity correlated to the moment the attic pictures were taken; one image showed a series of orbs hovering in a position slightly behind the photographer. Could this be the ghost “looking over our shoulders”?
The homeowners told of a long series of interactions between the ghost and the living. When they first bought the home, several members of the community approached them about buying an allegedly haunted home. Their own daughter went into the house and refused to ever go back. At least three different sets of tenants reported seeing and experiencing the ghost; one was enamored with him and wished to buy the house from them. They were not interested in selling, so she contented herself with leaving a note for the ghost. The note, left in a closet and witnessed by the homeowner, vanished without a trace despite the home having no tenants and being locked the entire time.
This tenant described him the strongest: he often showed up to her dressed in a Spanish armor, complete with helmet. Could this be the strange “elaborate headgear” that psi-sensitives picked up?
None of the renters, or the homeowners, or the SPIRITS felt anything ominous from this man. He was often curious about who was living in the home. He was also a bit lonely, though the changes in household often left him unsettled. He wanted to be acknowledged, was happy that someone knew he was there. The next tenant knew of him and was excited about her impending stay.
Overall, this was a wonderfully affirming investigation for the SPIRITS. The team went in without any foreknowledge of the area, the haunting, the homeowners, or the house. Yet, the equipment, historic checks, and sensitives were able to glean areas of truth that was validated by the homeowners.
Investigation Notes:
Notes: Homeowner turned off power breaker for us (it was still very light). The home had recently been painted and smelled faintly. Parts of the home had a wood-smell (the house was an old Florida cracker house and completely wooden).
EMF meter alarm set to go off at above the basic EMF reading of 2.2 on the 0 3 scale. This seemed high for EMF considering the power was off and there were only one set of power cords going into the house on the right hand side (when facing the door). No known reason for why the EMF was higher in this household. While readings were by no means dangerous, most homes, for purposes of comparison, have a base EMF reading of .2 on the 0-3 scale.
(Upstairs)
Bedroom 1: 74 degrees, EMF 1.8 2.0
Notes: Wood smell, chill on right leg. (Window to upstairs bedroom later found to be opened 2 4 inches, which could account for chill).
Bedroom 2: 1.8 EMF, 75-57 degrees
Hands felt very warm in the second bedroom; radiating heat.
Hallway/Stairwell
1.6 EMF
No temperature recorded.
(Downstairs)
Kitchen: 1.8 EMF
Bathroom: 1.6 EMF
Temperature 69 70 degrees.
One small spike from 1.6 to 2.0
Note: Linda and I felt a cool breeze in the doorway. Determined that the front and back door were open. Bathroom area was cooler, in general, as it was under a shady area.
Dining room: 2.0 EMF
Porch: 2.3 EMF
Power pole outside the porch
Living room: 2.0-2.2 EMF
Note: Dark images taken whenever I tried to take a picture of the cubby/shelf area. Five pictures showed nothing but black. Denise took a picture with her digital camera and got an orb in the same area where my camera got dark images. It could be that my camera could not focus on the area due to strange lighting. However, I’ve gotten few dark images inside a home and the flash was visibly on. I also made sure to take pictures positioning my hands differently over the camera to make sure that I was not inadvertently blocking sensors. Still got dark images.
Main bedroom: Chill on leg.
Garage: Cindy read a temp of 72 degrees.
Outside, temperatures were 68 69 degrees.
EMF was high in the garage pegging at 3.0 on the 0 3 scale. Not sure why EMF was so high, but the homeowner did tell us that the house had an underground power supply to the garage.
There is a beautiful old oak tree outside the house; probably very old.
Home owner report:
Two women who lived in the home reported an entity they referred to as a “he”one kept her desk out in the living room (near the heater) and she could see someone in her peripheral vision. When she looked directly, he would always vanish. She said he was a kind, nice guy.
The next set of tenants was a family that had problems. They argued all the time and the cops had to be called in; they caused problems for the homeowners. (Were these the ones the ghost didn’t like?)
The next tenant was a woman who loved the house, saw the ghost and just adored him. She wanted to buy the house from the homeowners. She said that she saw him dressed in military regalia, as Spanish, wearing a helmet a Conquistador. She said that he did open the kitchen doors. When she moved out she left a note for him in the cubby area. Homeowner found it and called her to return it to her; she asked that he put it back in the cubby. It was for the ghost. Homeowner did. When he returned a few days later the note was gone. The house had been (and was) locked up and no one, to their knowledge, had been in there.
The last set of tenants was a mother with two children. She didn’t report seeing him, but (Denise interjected the ghost did not like them. He did not like the man who kept coming over to see them). Homeowner believed that she did have a boyfriend who came over; he did know that her ex-husband would come down from time to time.
Homeowners asked if the entity was responsible for the bee manifestations. The EMF meter spiked and beeped.
They explained that after the last tenants moved out last Saturday there were no bees. Later when the homeowner was in the house a person stopped by and told him that he had a bee hive on the side of the house; there were hundreds of honey bees in the area and the hive had bled into the upper bedroom within only a day or two. The bees were exterminated, but it was surprising to them as it had never happened before.
(Homeowners turned on the power box during this interview)
They did have some electrical issues; the hall light would work one day and not the next. He did replace kitchen light bulbs at a higher rate, but there were more light bulbs to replace (due to the light fixture).
A new tenant is going to move in shortly.
Linda had an idea that the man may have been part of a re-enactment group, like the King Neptune club in Fort DeSoto or the pirates of Gasparilla. She remembered that as a child she saw the reenactments of the Spanish landing (an area called Spanish Landing was a mile from the home). It was a yearly occurrence for many years. That may explain the entity’s age versus the outfit. Linda is going to do some research to see what she can find out.
The homeowners do know that the home was once full of orange groves; it was once a ranching area. The house also served as a post office when the area was more sparsely populated.
When we closed the investigation the EMF meter did something it had not done in that area for the entire investigation. It spiked three times for prolonged periods of time when we announced that we had to goeach spike was about 3 5 seconds in duration. The entity, Denise said, was sad to see us go.
Conclusions:
Review of 35 mm photographs revealed nothing. The video had some orb images; however, video also shows images of dust floating by from the door. Also, a teammate’s flash light created problematic images with the video.
I found it interesting that out of my 72 photographs taken of the investigation two had images. One was when Cindy was in the cubby hole (where activity has taken place, and one tenant left the note for the ghost). The other was from David who took the pictures in the attic. He took the pictures at the time when he felt someone was in there with him and when Denise told us that the ghost was curious as to what we were doing.
We went into this investigation very cold. Homeowners couldn’t tell us anything other than others observed the ghost and it was not negative. So, getting the idea of the headdress was interesting, that the entity was a “he” also was remarkable. All three agreed to that.
The homeowners may try to settle into the home themselves one day. That may make the entity happy and give it the stability it wants. The current tenant knows the rumors that the house is haunted and is not bothered by that.
Overall, it was a beautiful house a true cracker house and the entity is harmless. The level of the information we received excited me. I’d love to go back the next time they have an opening.