Hey everyone! We hope that you are enjoying this beautiful morning. The rain of yesterday was greatly appreciated and much needed for the moisture. And since it cooled things down, that was an added bonus. The sun is shining and it is time to start a new day. We hope for everyone that it is one of the best days ever for everyone out there!
We are 3/4 of the way through July, and where does the time go? Even though the weather has cooled a bit, our team and our activities have not. We are reviewing our latest investigation, and hope to have it presented to the client soon. We are making plans for our Crystal Grill event in September, and hope to see a lot of you there. And we have an auction basket up at Blue Cross/Blue Shield, which we hope brings in lots of money for a very good cause.
The main reasons for using the equipment we do is so that we can review what we see and hear, hear and see what we didn't at the time, and to present that evidence to the client and to the people who are interested enough to view it. Sometimes we get what we deem good results, and sometimes not so much. But we keep trying. If we capture something we can't explain, we try to determine if it is a residual or an intelligent spirit we are interacting with. Everyone understands residual haunts. But just how intelligent is an intelligent spirit? This question really came to the prominence during our last investigation and some of the K2 hits that we had.
Often, teams state that names of team members are spoken during EVP sessions, and heard during review of audio. One member of our team hears her name quite often. And a friend has recorded his name being said multiple times. So how is this possible? Are the spirits following people around from investigation to investigation? Do they tell their friends in the spirit world who is in "their house" and hence the names? Or is it something else, something we just don't understand. And do the spirits interact with us, even if we call them by the wrong name?
During our last investigation, we were given a tour of the house, and history was related. The homeowner told us of a story about how a girl had died while living in the house in the 1950's. Whether she died in the house or not, she did not know. And she gave us her name, we will call her Mary for now. During our EVP session, we asked Mary if she was present, and our K2 meter responded. We asked more questions about having died while living in the house, and we had responses. We asked for other names we were given, but got no responses. We also used our Ovilus, and in asking for names, we received several, including one which was repeated multiple times, we will call her Sarah for now. Several words were repeated multiple times during the investigation, in multiple rooms, and almost without fail, in the same order. How is this possible? We hoped to find out.
In doing research in the house, which we have not totally completed to date, we found that the name of the girl which was to have died in the 1950's was incorrect, as this person was alive in the 1990's. So does that make these clips invalid? Maybe, but maybe not. We have an idea about this, and hope to be able to research to find if it is possible.
In doing the session, we were asking for the girl who died while living in the house. Could the spirit be intelligent enough to realize we had gotten the name wrong, but wanted to interact with us? Could it be that every time we called the wrong name, she knew we were wanting to speak to her, so she responded? And during the Ovilus, could she have been giving us the correct name of the girl who died? Is it possible that the spirits want to help us find our mistakes that it would do something like this? And is this part of the reason that some people have their name called over and over again, that the spirits want to communicate in ways we had not previously believed possible? We don't know, but hope to have more answers on this very soon. So maybe the next time we get something that doesn't quite add up, we can delve a bit more into it and see just how intelligent the spirits might be and how they are trying to help us, even from beyond.
Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Monday, June 17, 2013
Half Gone Already!
Hi All! We know that it has been a while since we put anything on here, but sometimes the urge to write just isn't as strong as it is other times, so one must wait until something is whispered in ones ear to sit down and compose...or at least that is the excuse we give ourselves!
Looking at the calendar, we see that we are well into the month of June, and that means that the year is almost half over already. Where does the time go? Friday will be Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and the shortest night also. Some say that the veil is thinner on this night, and the spirits can reach across easier. Is this the truth? We don't know, but maybe you will check it out and let us know!
One of our team members just recently completed a medical trip to Haiti. Taking in the scenes there, one really understands how good we have it in this country. A lot of homes are sticks with tarps, some actual tents, many concrete or adobe style rooms with small windows. So many homes without running water or bathrooms, community outhouses are common, and in the mountains even that is lacking. It does make one realize how lucky we are to live in a country where we enjoy so much more than we really need, and have the resources to obtain our goals in life. We hope that everyone will stop and reflect on what they have, and say a word of thanks for all that they have been given in this life. And the next time you pass a collection location, drop in a little bit of change to help, you would be surprised how far that would go, especially in a location where people live and care for their family on less that a few hundred dollars a month.
Which does bring us to our latest investigation....the old YMCA building in Granite City. This building was used from about 1926 to 2004 as the community YMCA. Regulations caused it to be too costly to continue to operate as a Y and it was deeded back to Granite City. There have been several reported deaths in the building, some under mysterious circumstances. More research will be necessary to see if these deaths can be verified. Or will this research lead to more mystery? One never knows.
Our team had the pleasure to investigate this building recently. After Dark Paranormal now calls this building home and is doing cleaning and so much more work to enable the building to be used for events surrounding the paranormal. Part of the money goes back to Granite City, part goes to St. Jude's, and the rest goes to the team to support their work and supplies. They have a lot of work ahead, but have also completed a lot of clean up of the building, and they will be doing the research mentioned above, and be learning more about the history of the building.
The first YMCA was started in 1844 in London by George Williams. Years later, retired Boston sea captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan, working as a marine missionary, noticed a similar need to create a safe “home away from home” for sailors and merchants. Inspired by the stories of the Y in England, he led the formation of the first U.S. YMCA at the Old South Church in Boston on December 29, 1851. In 1856, the nation’s first-known English as a Second Language (ESL) class was held for German immigrants at the Cincinnati YMCA. YMCA housing began in the 1860s to give young men moving to cities from rural areas safe and affordable lodging. Facilities included gyms, auditoriums and hotel-like rooms. Chicago’s Farwell Hall, the first known YMCA dormitory, was completed in 1867. Between 1922 and 1940, YMCA accommodations grew from approximately 55,000 rooms to more than 100,000, more than any hotel chain at the time. In the 1890s, YMCA instructor William Morgan thought basketball was too strenuous for businessmen, so he blended elements of basketball, tennis and handball, and called his invention “mintonette.” In 1896, at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., the name “volley ball” was first used to describe the back-and-forth manner in which the ball flew over the net. Today, more than 46 million Americans play volleyball. In answer to a YMCA campaign “to teach every man and boy in North America” to swim, George Corsan arrived at the Detroit YMCA in 1909 to teach swimming using radical new methods: group swimming lessons and lessons on land as a confidence builder. [This information was taken from the YMCA site and can be read in more detail at this link: http://www.ymca.net/history/founding.html ]
Many small rooms occupy the 2nd and 3rd floors. A large immigrant population from Central and Eastern Europe settled in this area, and possibly called this building home. Possibly they saved money and sent it back home to their families. Small rooms, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Community bathrooms, community dining rooms, community social rooms. A small price to pay for a safe place to live and food to eat.
We experienced a thunderstorm while we were investigating, and this always leads to the question of whether there is more activity with storms or not. Review of evidence will let us know if it happened this time or not. And if any of the residents of the building still roam the halls. But for us, we enjoyed the opportunity to make new friends, talk some paranormal with experienced investigators, and to be able to see inside a building not yet investigated by many teams. And even if we don't obtain any evidence, we will have enjoyed the night greatly, and are very appreciative of our friends at After Dark Paranormal for the opportunity to visit their "new digs" and to see their vision of the future of this grand building.
You can visit After Dark Paranormal: http://afterdarkparanormalgc.webs.com/
After Dark Paranormal Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfterDarkParanormalGC?fref=ts
Haunted YMCA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntedYmcaOfGraniteCityIl?fref=ts
Looking at the calendar, we see that we are well into the month of June, and that means that the year is almost half over already. Where does the time go? Friday will be Summer Solstice, the longest day of the year, and the shortest night also. Some say that the veil is thinner on this night, and the spirits can reach across easier. Is this the truth? We don't know, but maybe you will check it out and let us know!
One of our team members just recently completed a medical trip to Haiti. Taking in the scenes there, one really understands how good we have it in this country. A lot of homes are sticks with tarps, some actual tents, many concrete or adobe style rooms with small windows. So many homes without running water or bathrooms, community outhouses are common, and in the mountains even that is lacking. It does make one realize how lucky we are to live in a country where we enjoy so much more than we really need, and have the resources to obtain our goals in life. We hope that everyone will stop and reflect on what they have, and say a word of thanks for all that they have been given in this life. And the next time you pass a collection location, drop in a little bit of change to help, you would be surprised how far that would go, especially in a location where people live and care for their family on less that a few hundred dollars a month.
Which does bring us to our latest investigation....the old YMCA building in Granite City. This building was used from about 1926 to 2004 as the community YMCA. Regulations caused it to be too costly to continue to operate as a Y and it was deeded back to Granite City. There have been several reported deaths in the building, some under mysterious circumstances. More research will be necessary to see if these deaths can be verified. Or will this research lead to more mystery? One never knows.Our team had the pleasure to investigate this building recently. After Dark Paranormal now calls this building home and is doing cleaning and so much more work to enable the building to be used for events surrounding the paranormal. Part of the money goes back to Granite City, part goes to St. Jude's, and the rest goes to the team to support their work and supplies. They have a lot of work ahead, but have also completed a lot of clean up of the building, and they will be doing the research mentioned above, and be learning more about the history of the building.
We had to, of course, do the YMCA stance made famous in the song by the Village People..isn't that a standard??? But in doing so, we were drawn to what the building stood for when it was constructed. Today when you mention going to the Y, most know that it is a place to exercise, or take classes in various subjects. But the YMCA used to do so much more.
The first YMCA was started in 1844 in London by George Williams. Years later, retired Boston sea captain Thomas Valentine Sullivan, working as a marine missionary, noticed a similar need to create a safe “home away from home” for sailors and merchants. Inspired by the stories of the Y in England, he led the formation of the first U.S. YMCA at the Old South Church in Boston on December 29, 1851. In 1856, the nation’s first-known English as a Second Language (ESL) class was held for German immigrants at the Cincinnati YMCA. YMCA housing began in the 1860s to give young men moving to cities from rural areas safe and affordable lodging. Facilities included gyms, auditoriums and hotel-like rooms. Chicago’s Farwell Hall, the first known YMCA dormitory, was completed in 1867. Between 1922 and 1940, YMCA accommodations grew from approximately 55,000 rooms to more than 100,000, more than any hotel chain at the time. In the 1890s, YMCA instructor William Morgan thought basketball was too strenuous for businessmen, so he blended elements of basketball, tennis and handball, and called his invention “mintonette.” In 1896, at the International YMCA Training School in Springfield, Mass., the name “volley ball” was first used to describe the back-and-forth manner in which the ball flew over the net. Today, more than 46 million Americans play volleyball. In answer to a YMCA campaign “to teach every man and boy in North America” to swim, George Corsan arrived at the Detroit YMCA in 1909 to teach swimming using radical new methods: group swimming lessons and lessons on land as a confidence builder. [This information was taken from the YMCA site and can be read in more detail at this link: http://www.ymca.net/history/founding.html ]
Many small rooms occupy the 2nd and 3rd floors. A large immigrant population from Central and Eastern Europe settled in this area, and possibly called this building home. Possibly they saved money and sent it back home to their families. Small rooms, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Community bathrooms, community dining rooms, community social rooms. A small price to pay for a safe place to live and food to eat.
We experienced a thunderstorm while we were investigating, and this always leads to the question of whether there is more activity with storms or not. Review of evidence will let us know if it happened this time or not. And if any of the residents of the building still roam the halls. But for us, we enjoyed the opportunity to make new friends, talk some paranormal with experienced investigators, and to be able to see inside a building not yet investigated by many teams. And even if we don't obtain any evidence, we will have enjoyed the night greatly, and are very appreciative of our friends at After Dark Paranormal for the opportunity to visit their "new digs" and to see their vision of the future of this grand building.
You can visit After Dark Paranormal: http://afterdarkparanormalgc.webs.com/
After Dark Paranormal Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AfterDarkParanormalGC?fref=ts
Haunted YMCA Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHauntedYmcaOfGraniteCityIl?fref=ts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Communicating with the dead
Good morning all! We hope that you are having a wonderful start to the day, and that you are staying warm and safe, no matter where you are. Here, it remains up and down in the temperatures, and that makes it hard to investigate some of the locations we have lined up. So we sit and impatiently await warmer weather, itching to get back out to some of our favorite, and soon to be favorite, locations.
We do plan to walk around this weekend, weather permitting, to a couple of locations. Hopefully we can bring you up to speed if that happens.
We are still working on multiple things for this year. Have planned our group trip to Villisca House in September. Even though this location has been investigated multiple times by different groups, we feel there is something to learn about this house, and the tragedy that occurred there a hundred years ago. Are the voices of the murdered still there? Does the killer or killers still roam the floors, looking for more victims? We hope to find out, and learn all we can from this house.
We have several more investigations lined up, just waiting for warmer weather. Some are returns to previous locations. We feel we can learn more by repeating investigations, and taking previous results in account, try to find out more about the souls still walking around in these locations.
We have a new location lined up (yep, waiting on the weather to break slightly) that we have been wanting to do for several years now. And plan to return to a recent location, to try to continue the communication we started with the inhabitants of that locations.
Communication? Hmm, just what does that mean? All paranormal investigators know that the most frequently obtained "evidence" is that of voices. Photos and video of apparitions are very rare and most teams go through many investigations before capturing something that might fit into this category. But unknown voices, those seem to be more active in most locations. But who exactly are you capturing? And why?
Trying to record the voices of the dead goes back to the invention of the phonograph. It is said that Thomas Edison was trying to contact the dead, so invented a way to do so, or so he thought. Since that time, there have been many different types of recorders touted to be able to capture the voices of those long since past. But do they actually work? And just who's voice are you finding on the recordings? These are open to debate, but here is what we have discovered.
We use many different types of recorders and voice apparatuses to attempt to communicate. We employ the digital voice recorder, the spirit box, and the Ovilus on every investigation, and had had so-so results (meaning, nothing consistent.) But recent investigations have led us to believe that something is trying to communicate with us, in a very deliberate fashion.
During a private residence, the Ovilus spit out a name, one we had never heard, but the homeowner recognized. A guest investigator and friend of the homeowner was pregnant, and unaware of the sex of the baby. And this was the name she had selected for a girl...and earlier this year, she delivered a baby girl. How is this possible? Coincidence? Or someone from the other side communicating with us?
During an investigation at an older building, the site of a brothel at one time, we had a name come through the spirit box. Some of the people thought the name was Jane, but in reviewing, we believe the name was James. And in doing research, we found that James and Jane were married in that county, and the last name was the same as we heard on the recorder. Coincidence? Or communication?
Also in that location, we used the spirit box in several locations. This box, for those not entirely familiar with the way it works, picks up AM/FM radio signals, but is set to scan at 1 second intervals, which makes it hard to pick up words or names, let alone sentences. If it sticks on a channel, it requires pushing a button, and kinda hard, to resume scanning. At the same location as mentioned above, the spirit box locked on a radio channel several times, and resumed on its own..and the interesting thing...these channel all had to do with religion and God. Were the spirits trying to tell us something? Or was this just coincidence?
No matter your feelings on the above occurrences, we believe that someone is trying to communicate with us, and the more we use these devices, the better results we are getting. Are they from this world, in the form of spirits? Or are they in a parallel world, as some believe exist? Or is someone just trying to lure us into a sense of false accomplishment? We don't know the answer to this, but do know that we will continue to use these devices and chart our results. And hope that someday soon we can answer our own questions.
We do plan to walk around this weekend, weather permitting, to a couple of locations. Hopefully we can bring you up to speed if that happens.
We are still working on multiple things for this year. Have planned our group trip to Villisca House in September. Even though this location has been investigated multiple times by different groups, we feel there is something to learn about this house, and the tragedy that occurred there a hundred years ago. Are the voices of the murdered still there? Does the killer or killers still roam the floors, looking for more victims? We hope to find out, and learn all we can from this house.
We have several more investigations lined up, just waiting for warmer weather. Some are returns to previous locations. We feel we can learn more by repeating investigations, and taking previous results in account, try to find out more about the souls still walking around in these locations.
We have a new location lined up (yep, waiting on the weather to break slightly) that we have been wanting to do for several years now. And plan to return to a recent location, to try to continue the communication we started with the inhabitants of that locations.
Communication? Hmm, just what does that mean? All paranormal investigators know that the most frequently obtained "evidence" is that of voices. Photos and video of apparitions are very rare and most teams go through many investigations before capturing something that might fit into this category. But unknown voices, those seem to be more active in most locations. But who exactly are you capturing? And why?
Trying to record the voices of the dead goes back to the invention of the phonograph. It is said that Thomas Edison was trying to contact the dead, so invented a way to do so, or so he thought. Since that time, there have been many different types of recorders touted to be able to capture the voices of those long since past. But do they actually work? And just who's voice are you finding on the recordings? These are open to debate, but here is what we have discovered.
We use many different types of recorders and voice apparatuses to attempt to communicate. We employ the digital voice recorder, the spirit box, and the Ovilus on every investigation, and had had so-so results (meaning, nothing consistent.) But recent investigations have led us to believe that something is trying to communicate with us, in a very deliberate fashion.
During a private residence, the Ovilus spit out a name, one we had never heard, but the homeowner recognized. A guest investigator and friend of the homeowner was pregnant, and unaware of the sex of the baby. And this was the name she had selected for a girl...and earlier this year, she delivered a baby girl. How is this possible? Coincidence? Or someone from the other side communicating with us?
During an investigation at an older building, the site of a brothel at one time, we had a name come through the spirit box. Some of the people thought the name was Jane, but in reviewing, we believe the name was James. And in doing research, we found that James and Jane were married in that county, and the last name was the same as we heard on the recorder. Coincidence? Or communication?
Also in that location, we used the spirit box in several locations. This box, for those not entirely familiar with the way it works, picks up AM/FM radio signals, but is set to scan at 1 second intervals, which makes it hard to pick up words or names, let alone sentences. If it sticks on a channel, it requires pushing a button, and kinda hard, to resume scanning. At the same location as mentioned above, the spirit box locked on a radio channel several times, and resumed on its own..and the interesting thing...these channel all had to do with religion and God. Were the spirits trying to tell us something? Or was this just coincidence?
No matter your feelings on the above occurrences, we believe that someone is trying to communicate with us, and the more we use these devices, the better results we are getting. Are they from this world, in the form of spirits? Or are they in a parallel world, as some believe exist? Or is someone just trying to lure us into a sense of false accomplishment? We don't know the answer to this, but do know that we will continue to use these devices and chart our results. And hope that someday soon we can answer our own questions.
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