Date Of Investigation: Sunday, December 7th, 2008
Investigation Site: Apartment, Middleton, WI
Investigators Present: Amanda S and Matt S
Clients/Visitors Present: Client (B)
Equipment Used: Olympus WS-300M Voice Recorders, Trifield Standard EMF Meter, Trifield Natural EMF Meter, Dual Infrared Non-Contact Thermometer/Air Probe Thermometer
Weather Conditions: Cloudy
Average Temperature Outside: 19 Degrees Farenheit
Average Temperature Inside: 75 Degrees Farenheit
Moon Phase: Waxing Gibbous
Background: B moved in a little over six years ago, but she didn't experience anything until a year ago. One night she said something that she could not see, but felt the presence of, shook her bed quite strongly. It sounded as if it had entered through her window which she keeps open for much of the year as her apartment is very warm and well insulated. She said that though this frightened her, she assumed it was perhaps some kind of dream, but she is fairly certain she was awake at the time.
She has felt tapping on her shoulders and legs while resting on
the couch or in bed. She has heard a male voice whispering in her
ear asking her to "leave." She has seen some type of whitish clear shape
floating near her side while in bed. One night, she was
sitting on the sofa with her cat watching television when they both noticed a clear
rectangle shape, somewhat resembling an 8x12 sheet of paper with what
appeared to have to writing on it, float through the air between
the living room and kitchen. It just disappeared after a few seconds. She said she could not read what was written on it.
One
morning when she was getting ready for work, she noticed her makeup box was
knocked over and the contents strewn on the floor as well as a paper
weight that she said is probably too heavy for her cat to have knocked over.
B never had any experiences prior to living in this apartment, and she was never really a big believer in the paranormal. The apartment is a one bedroom. She lives alone with her cat who has been with her for a little over a year.
The building was built in the 1970's. She doesn't know who lived in the apartment before her or if anything happened there.
Our Investigation: We arrived at about 8:45PM and did an interview. Next B gave us a walkthrough of the apartment. We checked the sturdiness of the bed. It was very sturdy and wind from the open window could not have caused it to shake. We also examined the paper weight that B found knocked over on the floor. It was pretty heavy, but the cat still could have knocked it down.
Next we used the Trifield Standard EMF Meter to check for EMFs that could cause hallucinations or a feeling of not being alone. Everything was normal. We also took baseline temp readings even though we didn't end up using the temp reader during the investigation.
We put one voice recorder on the bed in the bedroom and had the other one with us in the living room, and we all sat quietly for about 15 minutes to document the regular sounds the building makes. Then when we were ready to get started on our investigation, B took the cat and went outside and down the hall (closing a door behind them) so the cat wouldn't bother us. We left the recorder in the bedroom running while we stayed in the living room with the other recorder and asked EVP questions. After about 20 minutes we rotated into the bedroom where we asked more questions.
After a little while we had B come back in (with the cat) and tried some EVP circles with her there. We did one in the living room, and Matt set his Trifield Natural EMF Meter on the table far enough away so we couldn't set it off with our bodies. Lastly, we did an EVP circle in the bedroom with the lights turned off, because B said she usually has the lights off when something happens.
We wrapped up at about 10:30PM.
Findings/Personal Experiences: We didn't have any experiences or capture anything on audio, get any strange readings, etc.
Final Analysis: We think what B is experiencing is not a haunting but something called sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis happens when you don't wake up properly. Normally when you go to sleep, the muscles in your body shut off to prevent you from acting out your dreams and endangering yourself. Sleep paralysis is where you wake up, but for some reason your muscles haven't turned back on yet. You feel like you're stuck and you can't move. Also, you can have hallucinations since you are still technically asleep. Your eyes are open, but you're still dreaming. Since B said in the interview that she's usually lying down when she experiences something, and she's felt like she was stuck and couldn't move, we think it's sleep paralysis. Sleep paralysis comes and goes. Amanda experienced it once and then never again. She didn't have the hallucinations but she couldn't move and felt like someone was choking her. But there are other people who experience it more than once. It's caused by stress, so if someone has a lot of stress in their life they're more likely to experience it multiple times.
Maybe the first time this happened, B was just having a bad day, and now the stress from thinking that her apartment is haunted is what's causing it to continue.
As for the physical things like the bed shaking, that could have been psychokinesis. The presence that she felt in the room could have been a hallucination caused by the sleep paralysis. The hearing voices, being touched are all things that you can experience when you have sleep paralysis.