September 15, 2020
This was a pre-investigation for the World’s Largest Ghost Hunt. Four members of the SPIRITS of St. Petersburg met to investigate Art Lofts. Would the quarantine have an impact on things this time? Indeed, there seem to be some long ranging results here.
Pre-investigation: Brandy, who has a studio in the building, noted that things had felt very “flat” in the area. The artists at first were shut out of the building during the lock down, then only artists were allowed in. Next, artists could met patrons with appointments. Some artists at this point remained outside of the building (for about 6 months). By the time of the investigation, the artists had started to return to the building and human activity was picking up. (Instead of a small group of artists, or no artists in the building, there seem to be consistent sets of people inside).
In addition, one artist moved out of her studio and into another studio. This was in the area of the vortex. The old studio that she left was converted into storage by another artist, who maintained his own studio in the building as well.
Since the shut down, to primary incidents have happened with Brandy present. Both times the events took place at night, both times were with Brandy and a guest present. In the first instance, an artist had come from New Port Richey to see her art that was in a show “trapped” in the building. The other artist set an appointment and she and Brandy were viewing the show.. The two moved to Brandy’s studio. Brandy sat at her desk across the room while the other artist examined artwork in the studio. Brandy started to hear what sounded like muttering. An air purifier was running in the room and she reached down to turn it off. The moment she did, her guest turned around and stared at her. “I heard voices”, Brandy reported, while the other said, “I heard footsteps”. (Neither heard what the other did; this seems to be unique experiences to both). The building at this time was locked to the public and no other artists were present. Together, the two walked through the building. The building was locked and no one else was present. They did experiment on replicating the footstep sound, and it came from the back of the building, as if someone was entering the back stairwell to the landing (see video at right).
The second instance was with Brandy and the curator of the locked-in art show were together with the art show. The two women were in the building alone, at night, and were recording online content to at least get the art shown via Facebook. Again, they were in Brandy’s studio when both women heard rustling sounds, as if someone was moving outside in the hallway. Together, they walked through the building to find themselves alone and the building locked.
In the following months, Brandy sporadically went to the studio. Each time, she noted that the energy of the area seemed drained, still, and quiet. There were no art walks, few artist visitations, and no one coming in from the public.
Sept. 15, 2020:
The four SPIRITs members arrived at ArtLofts to experiment with new technology and prepare for the World’s Largest Ghost Hunt. We were wearing masks and did wash hands/surfaces before and after the investigation. The group, along with Patroclus the Paranormal Pug, stayed from 6:30 to 8:00.
One person noted that the building did feel very “flat” when it came to energy. The vortex was “closed”. We did try divining rods, the EMF pump, and a laser grid in the area to see if anything would happen. It remained quiet.
Walking through the building to the stairwells also revealed very little activity. Patroclus easily walked up and down both stairwells, only pausing on the second landing and the mezzanine levels for the front stairwell. Otherwise, there was very little of interest to him in the building.
There were few areas of activity. The mezzanine was one area of activity but the rest of the building seemed quiet.
It will be interesting to see if things “wake up” now that the building will be open to the public again.
Note: We did determine that the halogen lights create the odd sense of warmth on the first floor, thus ruling out some reported activity.
There was an instance of rustling sound in the kitchen area, though we were not sure if it was paranormal or not.
