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Main Street

3/13/05

This investigation was quite special for the SPIRITS for in this case, there was no true contact between the SPIRITS team and reports of phenomena.

It started when one of the homeowners discovered that her co-worker was on the SPIRITS team.  Excited, she reported that she owned a home that was supposed to be haunted. However, she had not lived within it; she and her husband rented it out.  It was the renters who reported phenomena to them.  With a small window of time between tenants, the SPIRITS gathered quickly to see what they could discover about this old house.

The home, itself, was quite incredible.  It was a century old and hand built by a family of true Southern Floridians.  Its beautiful structure was immediately attractive and its historic nature apparent.

Though the homeowners turned off the power to the home at the fuse box, the Trifield EMF meter still registered a low-grade field emanating from the area.  Despite a very low register on the 0-3 scale, this EMF meter continued to fluctuate with small spikes of energy.

Sensitives also picked up a weak male presence within the home.  He was a strange character.  His presence was weak but consistent throughout the home, and grew stronger in the area of the living room/kitchen and main bedroom. 

At about this time, equipment began to act up.  One member's digital camera took a series of "dark" images in one corner of the living room.  Members speculated that it was possibly due to the diffused light and the distance of the beam sent out by the camera; however, another member who took a shot of the area captured a beautiful white orb.

It was time for members to talk of their experiences; with the homeowners present the SPIRITS members described their experiences.  Sensitives were befuddled by the images the entity sent; male, middle aged, related to the land, and associated with fire.  He was several generations old but had little concept of time.  And there was that strange elaborate headgear described as a turban by one and a headdress by another.  Lastly, it seemed that he was either of a Native American origin or possibly came from another country.

During the interview, the discussion turned to a cubby area that the ghost liked, and the upstairs bedroom where a strange set of floor panels indicated some form of construction to the room.  Three members of the group went up to investigate while the remainder remained downstairs.  The sensitive downstairs called up to the rest that the entity was up there with them.  One member climbed up into the attic with a camera; as he took pictures he had the sense that there was someone with him upstairs, leaning over him.  He took several more shots, and then closed the attic.  The downstairs group called up that the entity was bored; everyone returned to the living room.

The downstairs group immediately reported that the entity had taken an interest in those upstairs and was "looking over their shoulders" as if to see what was so fascinating to us.  The timing of the activity correlated to the moment the attic pictures were taken; one image showed a series of orbs hovering in a position slightly behind the photographer.  Could this be the ghost "looking over our shoulders"? 

The homeowners told of a long series of interactions between the ghost and the living.  When they first bought the home, several members of the community approached them about buying an allegedly haunted home.  Their own daughter went into the house and refused to ever go back.  At least three different sets of tenants reported seeing and experiencing the ghost; one was enamored with him and wished to buy the house from them.  They were not interested in selling, so she contented herself with leaving a note for the ghost.  The note, left in a closet and witnessed by the homeowner, vanished without a trace despite the home having no tenants and being locked the entire time.

This tenant described him the strongest:  he often showed up to her dressed in a Spanish armor, complete with helmet.  Could this be the strange "elaborate headgear" that psi-sensitives picked up?

None of the renters, or the homeowners, or the SPIRITS felt anything ominous from this man.  He was often curious about who was living in the home.  He was also a bit lonely, though the changes in household often left him unsettled.  He wanted to be acknowledged, was happy that someone knew he was there.  The next tenant knew of him and was excited about her impending stay.

Overall, this was a wonderfully affirming investigation for the SPIRITS.  The team went in without any foreknowledge of the area, the haunting, the homeowners, or the house.  Yet, the equipment, historic checks, and sensitives were able to glean areas of truth that was validated by the homeowners. 

Brandy's pictures, digital, below.  (David took the attic picture using Brandy's camera)

Main Street Investigation

Investigation Date: March 13, 2005

Report Written: March 13, 2005

By: David Michaels

Almost immediately after arriving at the house, before we even

officially opened or began the investigation, I sensed the presence of

a man.  To me, he seemed tall with a semi-narrow frame.  Specific

details were unavailable, but one thing came across clearly: he was

wearing some kind of elaborate headdress.

At first I saw it as horns or antlers, perhaps something worn in

ceremony or cultural status.  It reminded me of something a Native

American chief or shaman might wear, or perhaps, some kind of special

head gear a woodsman might have.  Whatever it was, the importance of

tall, elaborate headdress came across the strongest.  Although I

wasn't able to gather any specific details about him, I assumed he was

a Native American or some kind of woodsman throughout the rest of the

investigation.

Since I picked up his sense right away, I made note of it.  I felt he

was watching as I did.  He seemed friendly and respectful, but

certainly present and curious about us.

My attention kept getting pulled towards an old heating unit--the kind

that uses a pilot flame.  Nothing I've ever seen in my modern

lifestyle.  I didn't know there was an actual flame inside until

someone explained how it worked later.  All I did know was that my

attention was repeatedly brought to this heating furnace.  I kept

getting the image of "fire" there.  I got the impression that maybe he

was confused about how hot the machine got, or that there was a fire

maintained inside, or maybe once there was a small fire there.  I'm

not sure, but for some reason, he apparently wanted to point it out to

me.

Several times throughout the investigation, I felt like something of

importance was below, too.  On the ground.  As it turns out, the house

was actually raised above the ground slightly.  It was typical for the

era it was built in.  I don't know if he was buried on the property or

not, but several times I felt some signifcance related to the ground.

Most of the house, I didn't get any strong senses on.  In the closet

and cubbie hole areas, near and around the heating unit, I got a

strong/weird sense.  Most of the time, however, if I sensed something,

it was him, following us around.

Outside there was a small garage.  I didn't sense any activity inside

there, although I did get the impression that the man had visited in

there, but that wasn't his normal hang out area.

Another curious, and unverified, lure was towards a large old tree

outside.  I felt some significance at or around this tree.  The tree

itself was somewhat unusual.  About five feet up, the trunk split into

four different main branches, all extending and curving and bending in

different directions.  Great for climbing, I assume.  And beautiful to

look at.  But the significance to this ghost?  I don't know...

Later when the team compared notes, others got similar images of him,

but with different headdress.  One saw him wearing a turban, for

example.  However, other details we sensed seemed to match well.  We

feel that he died some 80 years ago, possibly more.  He was apparently

part of some kind of club, but nothing official or known.  Maybe like

a small social club between he and his friends.  His friends, we

sensed, had all moved on.  He was more or less alone in his afterlife.

Not that he was a loner or isolated himself, but just that his fellow

friends were no longer with him.

This house was rented to various tenants over the years.  The actual

homeowners only had hearsay information from their tenants.

Interestingly enough, one tenant described him wearing a big hat, like

what a Spanish Conquistador would wear.  Other tenants described

seeing or sensing him in certain areas--the same areas we sensed he

would have manifested himself to them.

We also agreed that whenever he was from, the terrain looked very

different back then.  We sensed a lot more trees, much less modern

development, etc.  As it turns out, the area was mostly orange groves

back in the era we estimated him to be.

The man's energy was relatively weak, although it did seem to get

stronger at the end.  We were unable to get a name, although one

person suggested "Rob" as one of the possibilities.  Although I have

nothing to back it up except a gut feeling, but "Robert" seems to fit

for me.  Whatever his name is, he came across as a friendly and

peaceful guy.  He followed us around the house, was curious about what

we were doing, and seemed to really appreciate that we acknowledged

him and shared some sense of interaction.

The information we did obtain about him was only verified through

other sensitives picking up the same information.  Since we've been

proven accurate on other investigations, I'd like to think that we

were accurate about him as well, even if we can't independently verify

the information with an outside, historical source.

Overall I'd say the investigation was a success.  The homeowners

seemed happy that we verified exactly what their tenants had been

describing.  The entity seemed happy that we acknowledged his

presence.  And we were happy we did so well, especially since this

investigation was set up at the last minute, and we went in with no

knowledge at all.  (Usually one member has an idea what's going on,

but withholds that information until the end.  This time, all of the

team was completely "cold".)

I don't know why "Robert" has stuck around for so long.  He expressed

wanting stability with all the tenants moving in and out.  Perhaps

he's looking for connection, or some sense of family or belonging. We

know he's not attached to the house originally, but he seems to want

to call this his home now.  Whatever his reason for staying, I hope he

and all future tenants/owners find what they need in a happy, safe

home.

Main Street

Brandy Stark

3/13/05

5:15  7:15 p.m.

Investigators present:  Linda, David, Cindy, Denise, Brandy

Homeowners, Denise's mother

Notes:  Homeowner turned off power breaker for us (it was still very light).  The home had recently been painted and smelled faintly.  Parts of the home had a wood-smell (the house was an old Florida cracker house and completely wooden).

EMF meter alarm set to go off at above the basic EMF reading of 2.2 on the 0  3 scale.  This seemed high for EMF considering the power was off and there were only one set of power cords going into the house on the right hand side (when facing the door).  No known reason for why the EMF was higher in this household.  While readings were by no means dangerous, most homes, for purposes of comparison, have a base EMF reading of .2 on the 0-3 scale.

(Upstairs)

Bedroom 1:  74 degrees, EMF  1.8  2.0

Notes:  Wood smell, chill on right leg.  (Window to upstairs bedroom later found to be opened 2  4 inches, which could account for chill).

Bedroom 2: 1.8 EMF, 75-57 degrees

Hands felt very warm in the second bedroom; radiating heat.

Hallway/Stairwell

1.6 EMF

No temperature recorded.

(Downstairs)

Kitchen:  1.8 EMF

Bathroom:  1.6 EMF

Temperature 69  70 degrees. 

One small spike from 1.6 to 2.0

Note:  Linda and I felt a cool breeze in the doorway.  Determined that the front and back door were open.  Bathroom area was cooler, in general, as it was under a shady area.

Dining room:  2.0 EMF

Porch: 2.3 EMF

Power pole outside the porch

Living room:  2.0-2.2 EMF

Note:  Dark images taken whenever I tried to take a picture of the cubby/shelf area.  Five pictures showed nothing but black.  Denise took a picture with her digital camera and got an orb in the same area where my camera got dark images.  It could be that my camera could not focus on the area due to strange lighting.  However, I've gotten few dark images inside a home and the flash was visibly on.  I also made sure to take pictures positioning my hands differently over the camera to make sure that I was not inadvertently blocking sensors.  Still got dark images.

Main bedroom: Chill on leg.

Garage:  Cindy read a temp of 72 degrees.

Outside, temperatures were 68 69 degrees.

EMF was high in the garage pegging at 3.0 on the 0  3 scale.  Not sure why EMF was so high, but the homeowner did tell us that the house had an underground power supply to the garage.

There is a beautiful old oak tree outside the house; probably very old.

Discussion: 

David:  felt 1 entity, male, wearing a headdress that was very ornate, possibly decorated with horns or antlers.  Not demonic, but uncertain what to make of headdress.  Felt the area was a woodsy area; that the entity may be buried near the area of the heater or lived in this area.

(We were doing the discussion in the main bedroom.  There was a spike of 2.4 on the EMF meter while David was talking about the next point)

He felt attracted to the heater area, not sure why.  Felt it had something to do with a fire. 

In the garage, he felt that he had been in there before but that it was not a normal spot.  He also felt like he was pulled toward the tree area, and reported that his legs felt strange when he walked over the land.

Cindy:  Heard the name "Gloria"  a greeting or welcome.

Her digital camera, which she tested before she left her home with her husband, worked perfectly.  However, it would not work at all when she got to this house. 

In the MA bedroom she heard the name "Rob"

She felt that the male and female entities were not together.

Denise:  Felt a man, middle aged, with a beard; thought he might be Lebanese, as he wore a strange turban or headdress on his head.  (there was a spike from 2.0  2.8 on the EMF meter at this point).  She thinks he died in a car crash; gory and messy; fire may have had something to do with the car crash.  She did feel he was a weak entity (which others agreed to) but that he was trying to get his energy across.  He tried when part of the group went outside.  She got the name Andrew or Andy; kept getting an image of clover or cloverleaf.  (EMF spike from 1.8  2.2.)  She mentioned the fire again, and there was a spike of 1.8  2.2. 

There was an orb in the picture where Brandy's camera was acting up.  (EMF spike 1.8  2.2).

Brandy:  Chill on legs upstairs, hands warm in bedroom 2, EMF spikes.

Second walk through:  Areas to check out:  living room, near the heater. 

Fire related, confused about the fire.

Campfire:  not connected to the house.  Something happened here. 

How old was the entity?  (About 80 years ago, a couple of generations back, big in the social area here).

He was middle aged, around his 40's or, more likely, 50s. 

He was upset because of all of the tenants in here.  This is his place, he lives here.  He has been through many tenants.  1 couple he was very angry with; they were arguing all the time.

He wants people to acknowledge that he lives here.  He was not bothered by them; he was tired and weak.

He was alone, by himself.  He was once part of a club; even though he's alone in the afterlife, he is not a loner.  His friends have moved on.  He wants peace but he is not finding it here; he feels like a foster child (Denise's words).  The tenants are hard on him; they keep coming and going.  He wants stability.

He has brown hair, narrow frame, tall, with headgear.  He may have been an immigrant from the 1880's; Muslim or Indian.  (Not Hindu).

What did he do to show tenants he was here? 

Walking on floors when no one is around (but Denise thought that could be her own imagination).

He appeared to other tenants.  He makes himself as visible as possible.

He does something in the kitchen.

People look in the upstairs upper window and they might be able to see him. 

He messes with the fan control, knocks on the cubby hole.  Electricity:  he pulls through electricity; the lights not working.

He likes to use the lights in the kitchen to get attention.

(EMF meter minor spikes1.8  2.2; timed and they are not in any patternrandom).

Cindy felt that there was "another cubby" somewhere in the house.  She felt it was upstairs; we went upstairs (Cindy, David and Brandy) and looked at the area. Homeowner thought there might be a "trap door" in the closet area  an area where it looks like some of the wood had been replaced.  It doesn't come up.

David went up into the second attic and took pictures.  While he took pictures with my camera, he sensed that there was somebody above him looking down at him.  Denise called up (she was downstairs) that he was upstairs with us.  As we kept looking, she called up that he was bored with us.  We went back downstairs.  She said as soon as we arrived that she saw him upstairs with us.  He was leaning over and looking over our shoulders trying to see what we found so interesting.  That correlates with what David was saying when he took the pictures in the upstairs attic (he's above me).  (Note:  We did get a nice string of pearl orbs in one of those pictures in the attic right around the time David said he felt someone above him.  The entity was not above him but perhaps behind him).

What does he want?  Acknowledge that he's here.  He wants respect.

Homeowner interview:

They could not fill out the homeowner form because they had not lived in the home; everything they experienced was second hand.

House was built in 1915 by two men (brothers).  Two daughters were born in the home and when they grew up the men built houses for them across the street.  (David noted that when he first arrived he sensed an old woman outside the house across the street  where homeowners confirmed Ms. Lucy lived.  She passed on a few years ago).

Ms. Lucy moved out of her home at the age of 87 to take care of her older sister, age 93.  The older sister may have been the "Gloria" name Cindy heard upon arriving.  Homeowners are going to try to confirm.

The current homeowners have had the house approximately 9 years.  When they bought it one person came up to them and told them they bought a known haunted house (THE haunted house of "Main").  

Their daughter came into the home and her hair rose on her neck; she was completely scared of the home and will not come back in.

Tenant's reports:

Two women who lived in the home reported an entity they referred to as a "he"one kept her desk out in the living room (near the heater) and she could see someone in her peripheral vision.  When she looked directly, he would always vanish.  She said he was a kind, nice guy.

The next set of tenants was a family that had problems.  They argued all the time and the cops had to be called in; they caused problems for the homeowners.  (Were these the ones the ghost didn't like?)

The next tenant was a woman who loved the house, saw the ghost and just adored him.  She wanted to buy the house from the homeowners.  She said that she saw him dressed in military regalia, as Spanish, wearing a helmet  a Conquistador. She said that he did open the kitchen doors.  When she moved out she left a note for him in the cubby area.  Homeowner found it and called her to return it to her; she asked that he put it back in the cubby.  It was for the ghost.  Homeowner did.  When he returned a few days later the note was gone.  The house had been (and was) locked up and no one, to their knowledge, had been in there. 

The last set of tenants was a mother with two children.  She didn't report seeing him, but (Denise interjected  the ghost did not like them.  He did not like the man who kept coming over to see them).  Homeowner believed that she did have a boyfriend who came over; he did know that her ex-husband would come down from time to time. 

Homeowners asked if the entity was responsible for the bee manifestations.  The EMF meter spiked and beeped.

They explained that after the last tenants moved out last Saturday there were no bees.  Later when the homeowner was in the house a person stopped by and told him that he had a bee hive on the side of the house; there were hundreds of honey bees in the area and the hive had bled into the upper bedroom within only a day or two.  The bees were exterminated, but it was surprising to them as it had never happened before.

(Homeowners turned on the power box during this interview)

They did have some electrical issues; the hall light would work one day and not the next.  He did replace kitchen light bulbs at a higher rate, but there were more light bulbs to replace (due to the light fixture).

A new tenant is going to move in shortly.

Linda had an idea that the man may have been part of a re-enactment group, like the King Neptune club in Fort DeSoto or the pirates of Gasparilla.  She remembered that as a child she saw the reenactments of the Spanish landing (an area called Spanish Landing was a mile from the home).  It was a yearly occurrence for many years.  That may explain the entity's age versus the outfit.  Linda is going to do some research to see what she can find out.

The homeowners do know that the home was once full of orange groves; it was once a ranching area.  The house also served as a post office when the area was more sparsely populated.

When we closed the investigation the EMF meter did something it had not done in that area for the entire investigation.  It spiked three times for prolonged periods of time when we announced that we had to goeach spike was about 3  5 seconds in duration.  The entity, Denise said, was sad to see us go.

Conclusions:

Review of 35 mm photographs revealed nothing.  The video had some orb images; however, video also shows images of dust floating by from the door.  Also, a teammate's flash light created problematic images with the video.

I found it interesting that out of my 72 photographs taken of the investigation two had images.  One was when Cindy was in the cubby hole (where activity has taken place, and one tenant left the note for the ghost).  The other was from David who took the pictures in the attic.  He took the pictures at the time when he felt someone was in there with him and when Denise told us that the ghost was curious as to what we were doing. 

We went into this investigation very cold.  Homeowners couldn't tell us anything other than others observed the ghost and it was not negative.  So, getting the idea of the headdress was interesting, that the entity was a "he" also was remarkable.  All three agreed to that. 

The homeowners may try to settle into the home themselves one day.  That may make the entity happy and give it the stability it wants.  The current tenant knows the rumors that the house is haunted and is not bothered by that. 

Overall, it was a beautiful house  a true cracker house  and the entity is harmless.  The level of the information we received excited me.  I'd love to go back the next time they have an opening.

Denise's images (digital)