One of the things that has been occupying my mind and time for the past 6 months or so is a new organization that I basically helped found. It is called the Southern California Open Observation Paranormal Society, or SCOOPS. We are, essentially, ghost hunters. I didn't want to post about it earlier because there wasn't much to post. Now that we've been at it for a few months, we're starting to get the hang of it. We've done 4 investigations, thus far. 2 official, and 2 training/informal. The official investigations were at private residences, the others were in public parks.
What we do:
When retained by a client, we interview them in order to find out what makes them think their home is haunted. We find out what sort of “paranormal activity” they've experienced, how often, and how concerned they are about it. There are many other factors as well. If we determine that their case is a good candidate, we'll set a date for the investigation.
On the day of the investigation, we try to set aside a block of time when the residents will not be at home to investigate the home. Ideally this will be overnight, but all our clients thus far have not been able to grant us that much time. We show up with a variety of mostly scientific investigative materials and equipment. This includes cameras, video cameras, a four camera infra-red DVR security surveillance system, handheld low-light digital video cameras, Digital voice recorders, Electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors, motion sensors, hand-held digital thermometers, and much more. We set up our various equipment, and do our best to capture any evidence we can of paranormal activity. We then spend days poring through hours of video and audio data to see if we captured anything.
Investigation 1, residence, Lakeside, California.
Here the family has reported doors closing, washing machine lid closing, feelings of being watched, shadows, and glimpses of apparitions. Also, there is a young child that often appears to be interacting with someone that isn't there.
Our investigation only lasted about an hour, since the family wasn't able to be away any longer than that. We didn't find much. We did find that the door that closes on it's own was not properly mounted on it's hinges, and leads to a room that often has open windows. It easily blows closed in a breeze. Also, the room that causes the most “uneasiness” and “feelings of being watched” also had bad electrical wiring, causing very high EMF's. A high electromagnetic field can lead to feelings of uneasiness, paranoia, and even hallucinations. We found no evidence of paranormal activity. But, with such a short investigation, we couldn't draw any conclusions.
Investigation 2, residence, Kearney Mesa, California
Here one of the occupants, the wife, have experienced strange sounds, things turning up missing, things that seem to break themselves, scratches appearing on counters and on the wife, cut clothing, and brief apparitions.
This was another short investigation because the older couple had nowhere to go in order to give us adequate time for investigation. We went back twice, trying different equipment and techniques. We were able to capture some of the mysterious sounds that were reported, but we think we may know what causes them. I've heard that something was found in the most recent evidence, but I have not seen it yet.
Our most convincing captured evidence, to date, is an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon). For those that don't know, sometimes when electronic recording devices are being used, what seems to be voices will appear on the recording that were not audible at the time the recording was made. It is thought that spirits can make themselves heard in this way. During one of our training investigations, at San Diego's oldest graveyard in Old Town, we captured an EVP which I have attached to this article. It is a grade B evp, which means that it is unmistakable, clear and loud, but we don't know what it is saying. Grade A would be if the words were clearly recognizable. We've sent this recording to a forensic audio lab for further analysis. They said the voice is consistent with the whisper of a young boy, at or around 5 years of age. There were no children present during our investigation, and the voice was not heard at the time of the recording. The transcript of the recording is as follows:
Investigator 1: I wonder if these are children's graves?
Investigator 2: Maybe
Pause
then the whisper. First impression is that it was saying “yeah” in response to the investigator's question. Not sure though. What do you think? Also, if you listen closely, there are a series of much fainter whispers leading up to the one loud one.
We have several investigations coming up. Feel free to check out our website, which I've hyper-linked to above.
