An Unseen Resident

On Friday, August 2, 2013, I discovered that I am never truly home alone…

As some of you know, there have been strange things that have happened in my house.  My dear sister, Janice, lives with me here and has sensed things that are beyond me.  My extrasensory perceptions range from nil to non-existent.  I have seen and heard things, though, that made me question my skepticism…objects that I know for certainty were in a specific place but disappear only to reappear some time later in a different part of the house…noises from unoccupied parts of the house…a shadow-figure of a man in the garage…tendrils of scents wafting through a room that only one person smells…trembling dogs suddenly scurrying under the bed to hide… individually, each incident might have a reasonable explanation (some of my explanations are probably more farfetched than a paranormal answer), but when taken as a whole, I’ve got to admit they led me to believe that something otherworldly was happening.  Quite an admission from a skeptic.  Janice and I finally agreed that  it was time to bring in some help, and Laura from Bay Area Ghost Hunters agreed to bring a team of paranormal investigators out.

EMF (Electromagnetic Field)

A little background on EMF.  I have been doing a lot of research into EMFs because I work for an electric utility, and I’ve been thinking that EMFs will be a feature in a future novel.  EMFs can cause various symptoms in people ranging from headaches and malaise to hallucinations and paranoia.  Most people won’t feel anything under 0.5 milligauss, and typically people start to react to 3.0 or greater.  I was a bit concerned when my alarm clock on my nightstand read 30.0.  (I’ll be replacing that clock immediately.)  The microwave gives off low levels of EMF when not in use, but some older units will jump into the 100s when operating!  Do NOT stand near your microwave when cooking!  (I’ll be replacing my microwave, too.)

There is a paranormal aspect of EMFs as well.  First, it is believed that the energy that ghosts/spirits give off can be read as EMFs.  Second, these entities can use EMFs to manifest.

Because of this, when Laura arrived on Friday night before the rest of the team, she started checking for EMFs throughout the areas where we’d experienced strange things.  We began the scanning in the garage where my soon-to-be-daughter-in-law had seen an apparition on several occasions.  As expected, the EMF detector spiked when she neared the fluorescent lights and the breaker boxes.  The surprise, though, was when we got a transient spike in the area around the place where Alicea had frequently seen the apparition.  There was no electrical equipment or wiring nearby, and the spikes only lasted a few seconds at a time.

THE INVESTIGATION

Laura, Matthew, David, and Tammy set up night-vision, motion-sensing cameras in Janice’s room, the office, the living room, and the garage.  (We didn’t bother with my bedroom since there’s no activity there – paranormal or otherwise, lol).  Originally I was supposed to leave the house to get the dogs away, but they let me and the dogs stay – at least for a while until I finally retreated to my room to keep the dogs out of the way (Mulder’s heavy breathing could be heard on a lot of the recorders).  Until I was banished, I was able to watch the camera feeds on our big screen TV.  What I saw and heard shocked me…

They started in Janice’s bedroom.  This is the only room where things have been witnessed to move on their own.  Within minutes, contact was made.  They started with a device called a REM-Pod.  A manufacturer described it: “The REM-Pod generates an independently emitted EM field that creates a uniformly charged background and then detects disturbances and the proximity of changes within this field. It’s the electrical equivalent of flour scattered on a floor to detect footprints.”

Their detector immediately started signaling that something was nearby (within inches of the antennae).  Its lights lit up and it gave off a terrible squawk.  Tammy, one of the ‘sensitives’ of the group, started talking, attempting to make contact.  And contact was made.  She placed a flashlight near the pod and asked that the entity turn it on/off.  IT DID!  I personally verified that there was no gimmick on the flashlight to make it do this, nor would it arbitrarily work/not work on its own.

EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomenon)

An “EVP session” is an attempt to talk with an entity.  Unfortunately, the answers are not usually picked up by the human ear; however, the voices can be caught on recorders, and when played back can be heard as a soft voice.  Sometimes, a sensitive ear can hear something, but it might be so faint or distorted that the person cannot make out the voice/sound.  At various times in Janice’s room, we stopped the EVP session and replayed the recording.  There were distinct answers to direct questions.  I am hoping that we will receive a copy of some of these recordings, so I won’t yet reveal what we heard… but I was stunned.

While we were all standing in the bedroom or in the doorway – including the dogs – we heard bumps and thumps in other parts of the house.  I am positive that the sounds were not typical house settling sounds.  At about this time, I was forced to remove the dogs.  With the EVP session going so well, we didn’t want to have an answer hidden under Mulder’s loud panting – it appeared that he was growing more and more anxious.

The investigation next moved to the office and then to the garage.  Things got a bit scary out there.  I’ll leave those stories for the next blog.  If all goes well, I will be able to upload some of the videos and/or recordings, too.

Stay tuned…

Click here to go to Part 2