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Date Of Investigation: Saturday, April 19th, 2008

Investigation Site: Private Residence, Neosho, WI

Investigators Present: Amanda M and Matt S, Noah L and Steve G (Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee Guest Investigators)
Clients/Visitors Present: Clients T and P

Equipment Used: Canon PowerShot AS60 Digital Camera, Olympus WS-300M Voice Recorders, Trifield Standard EMF Meters, Dual Infrared Non-Contact Thermometer/Air Probe Thermometer, Motion Sensors, Pyrometer, DCR-SR80 Sony Camcorder, UV Headlamp, H2 Digital Voice Recorder, Nikon D50 Camera, Sony DCR-TRV110 Camcorder, Sony DCR-TRV280 Camcorder, Olympus VN-3100PC Voice Recorder

Weather Conditions: Cloudy
Average Temperature Outside: 50 Degrees Farenheit
Average Temperature Inside: 1st floor was 58 Degrees Farenheit, and basement was 51 Degrees Farenheit

Solar Activity: Normal
Geomagnetic Field: Quiet
Moon Phase: Full



Background: Residence is a two story home w/ basement. The clients (T) and her husband (P) moved in at the end of Winter, 2007. They have three children living with them, ages 6, 4, and 2. A friend (N) lives with them also. The previous occupants felt something there but didn’t really have many experiences; they were playing cards one night and had cups on the table and the ice started stirring in all the cups. T heard about this from a friend who knows the person who used to live there, and called him recently to ask him about it. The past occupants lived there for 15 years. T says she noticed little things but the activity didn’t really start until December, 2007.
The occupants report seeing black shadow figures. The children 6 and 4 claim they see them standing in their bedroom doorways. But it's not just the kids or the people who live in the house who see them. On one occasion 5 grown adults saw two shadow people in the basement. T says the shadow people weren't seen out of the corner of the eye, they were seen dead on. Friend N said when Matt spoke to him over the phone in February that he'd seen shadow people about a dozen times in the last month. In March he saw one with eyes and wearing a hat, looking straight at it.

T says things are slamming and when they go towards the basement people are hearing a growl. One night she says it sounded like someone was punching up at the floor and dragging a dresser. It also moved the camera she has hooked up downstairs monitoring the oldest child (D)'s room. D is T's stepson, and T says she has a feeling he is some kind of gateway/carrier. When he went over to his mom's house stuff happened over there as well. But she also says they've had some experiences when he's not home, such as the furnace starting on fire, and friend N hearing running and what sounded like someone entering the front door when the door was locked and he was alone in the house. T said that her stepson's mom has a history of things happening at her house too, so it could be two separate cases.

They've heard footsteps on the basement steps, TV channels flip, batteries have been known to drain, people hear whispers, and P says he heard something breathing in his ear. Recently there was an experience where T says she could hear splashing in the bathtub when there was nobody in there. Then her stepson went in there to go to the bathroom and the water came on and he ran out screaming. She went back in there with him and turned it off and told him "that's not funny". She stood there with him while he finished going to the bathroom and the water came on again. She took him out and made him sit with her in the kitchen and she says she could hear splashing again. She went in and looked and the water was moving.

Investigation Overview: Noah and Steve arrived at about 5:30PM to map out the house, take baseline readings, and to do control audio recordings. Matt and Amanda would not arrive until a little after 7PM because they were coming from work. Once Matt and Amanda got there, we sat down and interviewed T and P, then did another walkthrough of the house. The investigation began at 8PM.

We noticed right away that the basement was really dusty and that could explain any orb photos. There were also some high EMF readings in the back area of the basement where D's bedroom was, and by the little closet type room that was off to the right side when looking at it from the basement stairs. The first thing we did was to try debunking the incident where the camera moved that T has hooked up downstairs monitoring her stepson's room. After looking at how it was attached, we thought that vibrations from people walking on the floor above may have made the camera move, so Noah and Steve watched in the basement while Matt tried walking, running, and jumping upstairs. But we were not able to recreate it.

Next we shut off all the power in the house to eliminate any false readings, and then set up video cameras in the basement (since the one they already had downstairs wouldn't work with the power off) and in a second floor bedroom. We put motion detectors around each camera, and we set more in various spots around the house. Then for the duration of the investigation the four investigators stayed together to reduce the amount of noise contamination and the clients sat quietly in the living room.

We started in the basement, and worked our way up. Before every EVP session we did 10 minutes of control silence first, then started asking our questions and taking pictures. We also took EMF and temperature readings. We wrapped up at about 1AM.

Findings/Personal Experiences: When we were all down in the basement doing our first EVP circle, just before we headed back up we thought we heard a noise upstairs and went to check it out. There was a pot on the kitchen counter that was moving for whatever reason. Something might have fallen and hit it, we don't know. We decided to set up in the kitchen and living room and do some EVP questions there. At one point everybody heard the motion detector in the basement go off when nobody was down there. After we were done we went back down there to check it out. Matt thinks his motion detector may have been malfunctioning because it got wet the day before. It also didn't go off at all when he approached it to pick it up. Matt put it away and put another one there in its place.

Noah had a couple batteries drain on him in his camcorder. He thinks it was because they were after market batteries that were just failing. He has since bought Sony batteries so he can see if there is a difference.

Noah and Steve also heard a whistling sound a couple times.

Final Analysis: Even though we didn't capture anything, lack of evidence doesn't mean lack of a haunting. We think what the clients may have going on is a poltergeist case, in which case the human agent who's causing the activity would have to be present for anything to happen. We think that one of the kids, possibly T's stepson D, may be an agent and since only T and P were present for the investigation it makes sense that we wouldn't experience anything. A follow up investigation with the kids present has already been scheduled.

T says that they've had activity while D was away, but the experiences described (the furnace starting on fire, and friend N hearing running and what sounded like someone entering the front door when the door was locked) could have normal explanations. Furnace fires happen all the time, and T and P admit that it needed cleaning. Another possibility could be that there are multiple things going on - a residual haunt and poltergeist activity (we think if there were anything intelligent the past occupants would have had more experiences, and we would have gotten more when we were there too). But the furnace fire, we think, was not paranormal.

T said the first time she talked to Matt on the phone that the activity was the hottest in the basement, where D was sleeping at the time. This would make sense, and the reason there's still activity down there now that the kids have been moved to the upstairs could be because the poltergeist agent now believes that's where the ghost lives. We know from experience that poltergeist activity often runs in families. It's caused by stresses in the environment, so if one person in the family is under stress then it's likely that others in the family may be too. D and his mom could both be experiencing the same thing; they could both be agents.

Matt has done two cases like this before where a mother and daughter living a few blocks apart were both having experiences. They saw shadow people too. In poltergeist cases, shadow people represent something from the subconscious, which is after all what's causing the RSPK. The human agent could be projecting something they fear to other people in the vicinity, or they could be looking for a scapegoat to pin the activity on. It's like their brain can't accept that they're doing it, but they can accept a ghost doing these things. Usually as soon as you figure out who the agent is and you get them to realize it and accept it, the activity stops. Friend N said he saw a shadow figure wearing a hat. This shadow person has actually been seen by thousands of people all around the world. The black suit and top hat are an archetype of a villain, so if it's a poltergeist agent looking for a villain then maybe that's why so many people seem to report seeing the same one.

Another paranormal investigation group came through before us, and told them it's demonic. The group has since disbanded because several of the members weren't happy with the way the leader always thought everything was a demon and never seemed open to any other possibilities. Their investigation never went through. But they nonetheless did a lot of harm by telling the clients that it was a demon when they didn't have anything to base it on, and the family was already scared enough as is. T says there are mysterious footprints that appear in the snow that they've seen several times. They aren't human and are really odd. The other group took a fascination with them. We still need to see the pictures of the footprints before we can say one way or another what they are, and they may have been strange but they probably weren't paranormal and we think the other group had a big hand in them being noticed in the first place. We're curious how they were even seen in the first place because even if you see footprints in the snow, at 15-20 feet from the house how could you tell they weren't anything more than animal tracks? What would make you go out and look?

We also think the family has been so scared because of the real phenomena they've got going on and what this other group told them that they've started to look at everything in their daily life that's not going just so and attributing it to the real phenomena. It's unlikely, for example, that the poltergeist was responsible for P collapsing on the floor unconscious with a temp of 104.7, which was another experience they reported, or that it was the cause of a near-car accident, or that it made D's mom have a seizure when she was over. It's probably also not responsible for the problems they've been having with their phone line and internet. These things are probably just the result of some really bad luck.