1
Pre-investigation
Early Fall
Peter called; he had a lead on a property that appeared to be haunted. The chain of information began with an image captured by the Google Street View car that drives the endless grid of streets to map their service of Street View addresses. It seemed that while mapping a street about thirty-five miles west of Toronto, Ontario, in a farming community on the border of Georgetown, they had photographed two ghostly specters on a property. This information found its way to the building’s owners, who confirmed that the building was not in use and was unoccupied at the time. The images showed a man through the living room window and an older female in early twentieth-century period clothing standing at the front door.
Peter had secured access to the property and building and had arranged for our first visit. He also informed me that the owners had removed a two-storey wooden shed from the property, and that they had discovered an old pistol hidden in a wall that would be at the property for us to examine.
The cottage on the property was on the brink of being designated as an historical building. When that happened, there would be renewed interest in it from the public. We had to act fast to conclude our investigation into the paranormal activities there, while it was still “quiet.”
2
First Investigation
November
The building had a stone rubble foundation, the exterior walls a greyish-beige stucco covering the original round log construction. The design appeared to be salt box with clear modifications done over its long history. The front porch, probably added in the 1920s, had a cement floor pad and craftsman-style, square-tapered columns on top of stone piers. We stood in the street and compared the front of the building to the photo taken by Google Street View and could clearly see where the alleged spirits appeared to be standing at the instant the photo was snapped.
Out back was an ancient barn, although not as old as the cottage. We decided not to enter the barn, but remained outside until the rest of the team arrived.
I found an old well not far from the house, which was capped off and now sported several dying potted plants.
Soon after, Victoria and Peter arrived on-site. Peter had the key and we entered the cottage by the back door, into the kitchen. It was obvious that the cottage had under gone numerous renovations and upgrades over the years. The back part of the cottage, where the kitchen was, had been added around 1890. Peter explained that the building had been moved to its current location in 1873 from about two miles away. The team did a quick tour: on the main floor was a powder room; a kitchen that opened up onto the main room, or studio as it was currently called; and two mid-sized rooms on the north side. Stairs led from the main room to the second floor and we filed up them. At the top of the stairs was a large open area, to the right was a small bedroom, and at the rear of the building was a larger bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. The floor was uneven underfoot.
The team fanned out to different rooms in the cottage and prepared their personal equipment — digital cameras, digital recorders, and gauss meters for reading electromagnetic fields. Paul wanted our first camera set up in the rear bedroom, facing toward the large open area and the stairs. The high-quality, built-in microphone on this camera would capture all sounds of movement and, hopefully, Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). Paul checked the lighting and gave me the thumbs-up sign to begin recording. Next, Paul and I moved downstairs to the front entrance and set up a second camera facing through the main room toward the stairs. The built-in microphone on this camera was designed to pick up sounds as low as 15 Hz, with this frequency we would be able to record sounds and voices outside of our normal range of hearing. (Human hearing is from 20 Hz to 20 KHz.) We placed a third camera in the kitchen facing the back door. Our audio/video surveillance was now live and recording.
As we were setting up, Peter told us some of the history of the building and the move from its original location to where it now sits. In its long history, the building had been used as a church, a private residence and farm, a rental home, and a business. Peter had pulled a list of names of people associated with cottage from the local archive, but it was incomplete. As Peter started to describe how the cottage had been moved, Paul, standing near the base of the stairs, heard a male voice from upstairs say, “Yes.”
Paul moved quickly up the stairs and looked past the large open area to the camera. Nothing was there. None of us were on the second floor at the time we heard the voice, and since we had searched the second floor just moments ago, we knew there no human intruders in the building. Was it the voice of a spirit agreeing to what Peter was saying about the building’s history?
Victoria entered the northwest room on the main floor and immediately felt nervous. She wasn’t frightened; just a nervous feeling washed over her. As she stepped out from the room the feeling vanished.
Joanna, one the team’s mediums, arrived on-site.
[As Peter welcomes her into the kitchen, his digital voice recorder is hit by a charge of static.]
Joanna handed Peter the Google Street View photo that he had sent to her earlier. As a medium, Joanna is sensitive to spirit energy and can receive psychic impressions from photographs.
“So, what did you get [from the photo]?” Peter asked.
“Interesting,” she replied. “I felt an older European couple and the husband was very abusive; a strong man, not fearful. This house was his, the wife was his property — that kind of mentality. He’s not scared of us and his presence is all over the place.”
[Male voice EVP: “Right.”]
[As Peter and Joanna talk in the kitchen, a male voice is captured on audio saying “Plain Friday.”]
When this EVP was later reviewed, we were unsure who he was talking to or what the meaning of this phrase was. Was it meant for us?
Paul, Victoria, and I moved to the bottom of the stairs and were about to enter the kitchen when all three of us heard a woman briefly humming, but unfortunately this was not captured on any of our recording equipment. Because it was not captured in a recording, this was not an EVP. Instead, it is considered a “disembodied voice” because it was actually heard by us in real time.
I looked to Paul, who raised his eyebrows, and I knew he was thinking the same thing I was: two physical manifestations of voice in such a short time. This place seemed extremely active. There was no telling at that time what we might encounter next or what EVPs were being captured.
Peter and Joanna moved toward the studio. Peter said, “So this male …”
“He’s just following us, so where we are, he’s going to be,” Joanna stated.
[There is a static burst on Peter’s digital voice recorder.]
Joanna looked back toward the kitchen and said, “Not so much in the kitchen, that wasn’t his place.”
Joanna stepped into the studio. “He tolerates the people here. He is curious and has some intrigue about them. If he wanted them out, they’d be out.”
Peter stopped and looked around.
“What’s the matter?” I asked him.
“I felt like I walked
