Field Trip #2 Recap: The First of a Double Shot O’ Museums

I knew from the start that this road trip was going to be different. For one, I was planning on driving to the Friday investigation, driving back home in the wee hours of Saturday morning, sleeping a couple of hours, then heading back out for Saturday’s investigation. The reason for my returning home, and the other reason why this would be a unique road trip, was because this would be the first investigation for my daughter, Courtney. Yup, that’s right! I was dragging my daughter along for an investigation! She’d survived the Ohio Paranormal Convention, so I felt the time was right. How’d it turn out? Well, before we get to that, there’s the Friday investigation to get to.

As usual, the Friday investigation began late Thursday night with my jamming all the equipment into Ol’ Blue. After a somewhat hectic day at work, I drove directly up to the investigation. Thankfully, this particular location was not too far away and I was able to make it up there by 4:00 pm. The building itself has a rather interesting history. It was once a private home but has since been turned into a museum. After interviewing some of the employees, it seemed as though most people who had experienced possible paranormal activity believed a former resident of the house was causing it and it was not tied to any specific items that might have been brought into the museum. For that, I was thankful! Having conducted many “haunted object” investigations over the years, I find them to be the most frustrating, especially when you don’t know which object is supposed to be the haunted one. It’s like looking for a ghostly needle in a spectral haystack.

Anyway, after interviewing the employees, I had a bit of downtime while the building was closed up for the night and the gentleman who would be staying the night there with me arrived. I also had a couple of Ghosts of Ohio members who were coming to help out on the investigation, too. So I basically sat and chatted some more with the employees, one of who told me that the gentleman who would be staying with me didn’t believe in “all this ghost stuff.” To be honest, when I heard that, I got a little nervous. Not that I am opposed to hanging out with skeptics because I actually enjoy that, especially since I am one myself.  It’s just that in recent years, most of the skeptics I’ve bumped into initially come armed with visions of ghost reality television dancing in their heads, which usually results in a barrage of comments like “is this where you turn out the lights and run around, screaming like girls” or “do you guys fight demons?”. Thankfully, when our guide for the evening arrived, he was nothing short of professional. He did seem a bit standoff-ish at first, but once my fellow GOO members, Adam, Kathy, and Sheri, arrived and started unloading the equipment, our guide became rather interesting in all the “gadgets”.  So perhaps we were able to convert him…just a little.

I say this because during the tour of the building (which consisted of three floors and a full basement), I remarked that while the ghost was believed to be attached to the house, it was hard to see anything but a museum—bedrooms looked more like sections of a museum due to all the artifacts in them. Upon hearing this, our guide remarked that a woman who was friends with the last people to live in the house resided just down the street. He even offered to call her up to see if she would be willing to come out and explain what each room functioned as when it was still a house. I thought that was a wonderful idea and was blown away when, several minutes later, our guide returned and said the woman would be over in a few minutes.

Right on time, the woman showed up and proceeded to walk us all through the museum, explaining what every room was originally used for. During the course of our tour, the woman even mentioned that she had been very close to the woman who many believe haunts the museum. Hearing that, I realized this was the opportunity of a lifetime; to have someone with a direct emotional connection to a reported ghost participate in an investigation. By and large, almost all of the investigations I have conducted had been to find ghosts that neither I nor anyone else I was with had any emotional connection to. Sure, I would sometimes know the name or the back-story about a ghost, but it wasn’t like they were my friends or relatives. Knowing that a chance like this might never come again, I asked the woman if she would be willing to take part in the investigation. She seemed hesitant at first, but eventually agreed.

Now, while I might get a lot of angry e-mails about this, I can’t go into specifics about what happened during the investigation. That will have to wait until the book is finally published. But I will say this; it appears as though having someone a ghost would call a friend on an investigation helps. That’s because during an EVP session that I conducted with the family friend, it would appear as though something heard us and responded. And not with an EVP. This was something that was so loud and so pronounced that it was picked up by multiple recording devices throughout the building, as well as being heard live by both myself and the family friend. On top of that, our sound mixer picked up something that, after being independently analyzed by an outside source, cannot be explained.

I would love to tell you about the tasty road food I had on this investigation, but it wasn’t meant to be. After packing up all the equipment, I decided to try to find some late-night spot to chow down. After traveling down many a dark, deserted road, I ended up at a Taco Bell…, which is a scary story for another time.

I made it home safe and sound around 1:45 am and hopped right into bed without even bothering to unload the car. That’s because later that morning, I would be shoving off to go investigate the second museum in as many days. And this time, I would be taking my wife and daughter along!

Visit Recap

• Time spent at location: 8.5 hours
• Total hours of audio recorded:  15.0
• Total hours of video recorded:  20.0
• Total # of photographs:  112 (plus Sheri’s personal photos)
• Total miles:  134
• Roadside Oddities

1.  While not technically something I passed alongside the road, during a break in the investigation, everyone wandered outside and watched a NASA space station fly overhead

• Radio Nuggets Unearthed

1.  Sister Golden Hair—America

2.  Flagpole Sitta—Harvey Danger

• BBBJ?  Yes (once):  Wanted Dead Or Alive (1)