were making was interfering with our recordings. After about an hour of that, we shut the windows. Even so, when we reviewed the data later on, we found that the first hour’s worth of recordings were useless because there was so much outside interference. Such are the pitfalls of ghosthunting.
In the upstairs room we sat on the floor, placing the tray with the various objects in the center of the room. We began to ask the typical questions of the spirits:
Is there anyone here that would like to speak to us?
Can you tell us your name?
Do you know what year it is?
Can you tell us how old you are?
We did not expect to get an audible answer to any of these questions but we did hope that our recorders would pick up a ghostly reply that we would hear on playback. We continued to ask questions, trying to focus on questions that required more than a simple “yes-no” reply.
There is a theory that says ghosts drain whatever energy they can get from the environment in order to “live.” This explains why ghosthunters so often complain about brand-new batteries in cameras, flashlights, recorders, etc., going dead right away; the ghosts have drained that energy. I believe that theory also explains “cold spots” in haunted locations. If ghosts drain energy from the environment, wouldn’t they also drain thermal (heat) energy? If they did draw that energy—literally sucking the heat out of a room—you would experience a cold spot or a drop in room temperature.
Perhaps with that theory in mind, Melinda asked the ghost if it could drop the temperature in the room. Using a remote digital thermometer, we recorded the room temperature at 85 degrees.
“Can you lower the temperature?” Melinda asked the dark.
We sat there quietly, waiting.
“Make it colder if you can,” Melinda said.
We waited.
After a few minutes someone said that they felt a breeze.
“My arms are getting cold,” Melinda said.
That’s when I felt a stream of cool air against my arm. I was wearing a short-sleeved shirt and could clearly feel the draft. “I’m getting a draft blowing against my arm,” I said.
“Does anyone else feel anything?” Melinda asked.
One of the other team members, Tanya, said she felt a draft as well.
The breeze on my arm was stronger now, actually cold. I was sitting near the doorway to the room, so I leaned over to that area and reached out into the darkness to see if I felt a breeze there. Maybe it was a natural breeze from outside, coming up the stairwell, I thought. Nothing. The air was still and hot. Moving back into my original position, I once again felt the draft, colder than ever.
“It’s still here,” I said. “Colder now.”
“OK” said Melinda. “My arms are freezing.”
I scooted back a few inches to see if I could discover the source of the draft, even though I knew the windows behind me were closed and, without air-conditioning in the house, there was no way to explain that frosty draft.
“My arms are so cold!” Melinda said. “Someone get a temperature reading.”
In the darkness I couldn’t tell who was using the thermometer, but I saw the red laser eye flash on in my direction and then heard someone say, “Seventy-eight degrees.”
Seventy-eight! Great Caesar’s ghost! The room temperature had dropped seven degrees for no apparent reason. The only explanation we had was that Melinda has asked the ghost to lower the temperature, and I guess it did.
It took a few minutes for the temperature to drop and while it was dropping, we also heard strange sounds coming from the room adjacent to the bedroom in which we were gathered. There were shuffling sounds, as though someone were moving around in the dark; popping sounds one might hear on old wooden floorboards; and knocking on walls. Sometimes these sounds would occur immediately after a question was asked, as if in reply.
After several minutes the temperature rose once more and we were not able to get the ghost to lower it again. We concluded our investigation upstairs and moved down to the bedroom at the rear of the house. During a previous S.O.A.R. investigation, a guest investigator asked, Is this the bedroom you stay in? The recording captured a female voice responding, But, I don’t. It seemed that the bedroom would be a good place to conduct another EVP session.
Melinda placed the same objects she had used upstairs on the bed and once again invited the ghost to use any of them. The rest of us gathered around the bed, asking questions, waiting for answers. At one point, it seemed that the compass needle moved a few degrees, but we thought that someone had bumped up against the bed, jiggling the compass.
We continued asking questions for quite some time but did not hear audible responses of any kind. Early in the morning, we concluded the investigation.
Later, upon review of the data we found that we had recorded several EVPs. In the upstairs bedroom, a female voice said, Help me, followed by a childlike, whispered Help. Also upstairs, Melinda asks, “Maybe they will ring the bell?” followed by a man saying, Can’t. At one point, while we were all downstairs, we had left a recorder switched on upstairs. That recorder picked up breathing sounds and Yes.
There is no question that the historic Ross Gowdy House has a ghost or two still living in it. Who the ghosts are remains a mystery, one you might be lucky enough to unravel.
Legendary Ghosts: Enos Kay
Back in the nineteenth century a young man named Enos Kay lived along Egypt Pike in Ross County. Enos was an honest, hard-working young man who had become the envy of the county since he won the affections of Alvira, the local beauty.
It took several years of scrimping and saving for Enos to get together enough money for a wedding worthy of his beloved Alvira. But at last he had the money, and soon wedding arrangements were under way. The wedding clothes were being fashioned, and everything was going well for the young couple until the fateful day in 1869 when they decided to attend a church picnic.
A mysterious stranger, a man none of the churchgoers had ever seen, showed up at the church picnic that day. It was even unclear what the man called himself; some of the picnickers thought his name was Smith, while others thought it was Johnston, or maybe Brown. One thing they all agreed upon was that the man clearly had eyes for the beautiful Alvira. Throughout the day, the stranger did his best to woo the girl while meek and hapless Enos simply stood by and watched.
It wasn’t long before rumors began to circulate that Alvira had been seen walking hand in hand with the handsome stranger, rumors that Enos simply dismissed as idle chatter. How could the love of his life, the woman who had promised her love to him, be with another man? Impossible. But when Enos heard a few days later that the man had climbed through Alvira’s bedroom window at night and proposed to her, and that she had accepted and run off with the man, he was stunned.
Enos immediately ran to his fiancée’s house, where he discovered, much to his grief, that Alvira had, indeed, jilted him and was gone forever. Enos let out a heart-breaking cry and swore that he would forever haunt happy lovers until Judgment Day. Then, he walked out to Timmons Bridge, the local lovers’ lane,
