the second-floor landing, then the smaller bedroom, Peter descended the stairs.
[With no one on the second floor the surveillance microphone records a male saying, “Baruba, Baruba.” Its meaning unknown.
Then a male calling for “Henry.”]
The team packed up and we called it a night. It would be a few days before we discovered what we had captured in our recordings.
Conclusions:
It became evident to me that the spirits in the cottage were divided. One camp seemed friendly and willing to help and communicate with us. The other camp seemed aggressive toward us, and it appeared that they knew they had an upper hand on us as we were not able to see and/or hear them. It was as though they were taunting us.
The property owners had told us that the place had never been investigated prior to us coming on-site; however, it seemed like some of these spirits were old hands at dealing with paranormal investigators, like they had been through this many times before. This certainly put me on guard.
4
Peter’s Visits
January
Earning the trust of our clients is an incredible feeling, especially when we’re dealing with so many unknown factors regarding the paranormal. Allowing otherwise total strangers free reign to investigate one’s private property is not something most folks are willing to do.
After three worry-free investigations, the confidence of the property owners in our work — and in us as trustworthy people — continued unabated. This was certainly made apparent during the first two weeks of January.
Though the next formal investigation of the cottage property was scheduled to take place during the last week of January, the owner furnished us with a key and granted us access while they enjoyed a two-week vacation out-of-country.
Safety is Priority #1 to The Searcher Group; one of our team rules is that we never, ever, conduct an investigation alone. Because of this cardinal law, we now had a problem to overcome. Here was this tremendous opportunity to collect more data from this haunted location, but no one on the team was available to investigate until the end of the month. No one, that is, but Peter, the local boy.
Painfully aware of the safety procedures, Peter contacted me for advice regarding this dilemma. Ultimately, Peter talked me into agreeing that he should proceed with data-collecting experimentation, but he was to avoid the barn completely and to limit his visits to the cottage. Even then, Peter was to spend as little time alone inside as possible.
After great deliberation I gave authorization to proceed, albeit with caution. Peter immediately set to work on a plan of action. What follows are Peter’s reports from his solo investigation.
Visit #1 — January 8
Arriving at the cottage before 8:00 p.m., I entered the silent building with my digital voice recorder already running and the E. Probe 1.0 pre-set at a high sensitivity detection level.
Since I was no longer a stranger to the spirits of the house, I thought I’d try to shake up their expectations a little by simply entering the cottage, offering the alarm device someone seemed to have a fondness for, then leaving without verbally acknowledging them or sharing my intent — a radical departure from normal Searcher Group procedure that “they” were no doubt becoming accustomed to.
Leaving the recorder on a chair in the dining room and the E. Probe 1.0 armed atop a drafting table far across the adjacent studio room, I locked the door behind me and drove away.
Returning two-and-a-half hours later, I couldn’t help but grin widely as I emerged from my car. The alarm of the E. Probe could be heard blaring from inside the house, as it had done during previous investigations. Pleased with my success, I worked quickly, re-entering the house, deactivating the E. Probe, collecting the recorder, and moving toward the exit; again, without a word spoken.
As I stepped across the threshold of the cottage, I suddenly experienced an abrupt pressure change in my right ear — the most unpleasant kind of deafening, popping sensation one feels when travelling at high altitudes by airplane. I half-wondered if I had just been poked or punched by someone unseen as I locked the door behind me and returned to the safety of the car. The entire procedure took less than three minutes.
Turning the ignition, I broke my silence to tell the empty air that if I was being joined by a resident spirit at that moment, they were to remain behind and not follow me home. I also noted that for the first time since beginning investigation of the property, I could smell traces of the air freshener scent from the interior of the cottage inside the car. This familiar odour lingered for about a minute as I drove away, dissipating completely as I passed the local cemetery.
The perceived success of the night’s experiment was short-lived as I began analyzing the audio data. Seven minutes and fifty-one seconds after I had left the cottage, the E. Probe 1.0 began alarming and — unfortunately — remained alarmed for the rest of the recording. Instead of a successful ghostly interaction, it seemed that the device had simply malfunctioned and its incessantly-loud blare drowned out any possible EVPs that may have occurred.
Visit #2 — January 10
I rarely drive anywhere listening to music or the radio. So it was on this evening that minutes after leaving home, I began hearing the ear-splitting E. Probe 1.0 alarm in my head. Glancing down at the device lying quietly on the passenger seat beside me, I noted the “ghost” of the alarm sound resonating in my inner ears lasted fifteen to twenty seconds before giving way to the normal ambiance of evening traffic outside the car.
I can honestly say I had not heard the pure alarm sound of the device for more than twenty-four hours before this spontaneous, ear-ringing phenomenon and I haven’t heard a similar ear-ringing since. The irony that this occurred on my way to the second solo data-collecting experiment was not lost on me.
Deciding to once again remain silent after entering the cottage, I placed the digital recorder inside the alcove at the base of the staircase to the second floor, the microphone pointed into the open studio beyond. Dropping the sensitivity of the E. Probe 1.0 to a lower setting* than the previous visit, I placed the device on the seat of the wicker chair in the northwest room, confirmed the recorder was operating properly, and exited the house silently, without incident.
[*In order to activate the alarm of the E. Probe 1.0 at this setting, a source of electrical energy would need to approach within 3 millimetres of the device’s aerial.]
Two hours and forty minutes later, I returned to the cottage to retrieve the equipment and was not smiling when I stepped from the car to hear the alarm blaring from inside the building again. Praying this evening’s recording would reveal this alarm was actually one of several, I quickly collected the equipment and exited the cottage.
While I consider it a victory whenever the alarm is activated by an unseen force, unfortunately, once activated (this time, nine minutes and forty-seven seconds after my departure), the alarm remained on for the duration of this recording, as well.
Looking on the positive side, at the very least I was slowly determining the increments of the device’s ideal sensitivity setting. Still, it came at the cost of potential EVP loss, so a new tack was definitely in order.
I learned something else that evening, as well. Wearing the same clothes I wore during the first night and spending the
