POE Team's First Bigfoot Hunt

Well, I am exhausted and exhilarated. It was cold. It was pine-y. It was rustic. We stayed in a log cabin at about 8000 feet in Northern AZ. Being a woman who would like to spend her entire life in an autumn forest, I was in my bliss.



The purpose of the hunt this time was really to acclimate ourselves, giving Bigfoot hunting a reference. We learned from our tracker some things about good locations and tracks. He did a lot of reconnaissance, finding us a good location for our nighttime vigil.

Here's the lodge at the cabin place we stayed at. Very rustic and western, huh?



We got to learn a lot about studying the trees and watching for movement between them, about cattle paths, game paths, ideal locations, trying some wood knocking and whooping and using the FLIR.



Here's video of our daytime practice and studying the woods for a good place. Oh, and me wood knocking and Bigfoot whooping too!



When we came back at sunset and hiked deep into the woods up the mountainside, we found an ideal location near springs and a ravine. We sat down and turned all lights out and listened, getting used to the sounds the woods make. We used the FLIR to be aware of any creatures.



For some times, I heard twig snapping in the ravine, but not heavy, some lighter creature. We hard what sounded like a cat a few times. A couple times, I could swear I heard chest thumping down the pathway where I sensed something studying us. We watched the stars above. In the city, you don't get beautiful skies to see every single star. We watched lots of satellites and shooting stars and bundled up in the cold air.


(Julie, above)

It was very beautiful sitting there on a granite shelf shaped like a recliner chair, studying the sky, looking around me, listening, now and then turning on a flashlight to see what was making noise. Someone on the team saw the glow of eyes too. The team member who scouted out the location mentioned bobcats living in a cave up the hillside, so we figured they might have been curious.



The whole process of going out there and hiking around was to get ourselves into the hunting mode. We do this as ghost hunters, but it's very similar hunting Bigfoot. It involves long periods of time, becoming attuned to changes in the environment and trying experiments for communication. It's our hope to get more exposure to such jaunts before taking it on the road to some better chance areas like the Sierras or Oregon.

You know me, I can't just end it on a serious note. What are the woods for with a nightvision camera except to have some fun?



And, since it's October, it seemed appropriate for a little red riding hood shot in the woods--

The Funny Part of Bigfoot Hunting

(Our Jack Links Sasquatch!)

I'm back from the Bigfoot hunt and have much to report about it. Tomorrow, I will cover the actual hunt, but for today, I'm just sharing the funny stuff as I sort through the rest. You didn't think I'd go on a hunt without some antics, did you?

As I left for the trip, Dale had been acting up the night before and I think he sensed I was leaving without him. So, I thought I'd put him in his place. This October is all about me turning the tables on the booger. Here is how he was doing as I left the apartment--



At a mountain overlook above Sedona, AZ, I found this interesting sign. It made me wonder what incident occurred that made them put these two warnings together--



BF got video proof that humans exist--



A team member tries a BF call --



Years of drought left most the lake empty. So, one team member goes to check it out and I, well, pester him--



You knew I couldn't go somewhere and not run into weirdness (I mean other weirdness, not self-perpetuated). This was no exception. Our cabin was blissfully peaceful the first night, but the second night, a western cowboy wedding occurred, a motorcycle gang hit the town, a vintage Porsche club, a poker tournament, deer hunters began their season and us Bigfoot hunters were perhaps the most normal thing around. We sat on the back porch and smelled the neighbors smoking hash. Oh, and during the night when the bar across the street started up with the whooping and hollering of the local men, we came to realize the sounds were coming from the petting zoo behind the bar. No, we didn't ask why. We didn't want to know. We just tightened our sphincters and didn't ask questions, but images of "squeal like a pig" came to mind.

Got back to the car and Bigfoot left a message "Human Go Home"--

Going on a Bigfoot Hunt!

Do you think I do anything normal when I have time off? Since time off is precious and rare for me, I take full advantage of it and do something insane so the rest of the boring time I'm typing medical reports or writing books, I can daydream about the fun and goofy things I've done. Life is really just about experiences. I'm tired of saying I want to hunt BF and now I'm going to finally do it! I hope this is the beginning of something big. I really want to move to Oregon and if I do some day, no one will ever see me again, I'll be in the woods getting into, well, mischief.

So, the end of this month, my POE team and I are going on a BF hunt up in Northern AZ. Yes, he's been seen up in that 8000 foot area with thick forests. We can try out our skills and perhaps some day plan a trip to extreme Northern CA, Oregon or Washington.

I have some absolutely ridiculous videos planned to share with you and some photo shoots of Autumnforest in a, well, autumn forest.

The nights are in the 30s there at that time of the year. It will be burr cold, but I will be all enthralled. I haven't seen autumn colors since 2005! I can hardly wait. We have a FLIR thermal imager, plaster of paris, a very well trained tracker on the team, and plenty of imaging equipment.

If anyone has any ideas for things we should try, please share. Each month, expect me to do something insanely weird and share it with y'all. Hey, it's my favorite thing in the world--to keep people a little unsure of my next move. This time of year around this blog, it pays to remain edgy, folks. You're going to fucking love my posts for October!

The Barbie Experiment: Hunt at the Haunted B&B

(I was a bit giddy to stand in front of the window air-conditioner. It was about 107 and humid that day!)

The first part of our ghost hunt at the Noftsger Hill Inn was in our room that we rented. The second night, we did the hunt at the jail and stayed in our room at the end afterwards.

This inn I wanted to go back to with my team because it has a funky set of vibes that leads to some mischievous child's play. The last time I stayed there, during the night several times I heard chalk moving in the chalk tray below the chalkboard near my bed and also heard a little girl near my bed speaking a full sentence several times throughout the night in a regular speaking voice.

I put out a devil's box (a 6-sided cube with mirrors facing inward) and we placed a recording device inside and a control recording device outside of the box. We went out to supper and left it there. There are claims such a thing creates demon growling and voices. We will see once the evidence is reviewed.




We also took and put chalk dust on the chalkboard's tray and put the chalk in the middle of the tray with dust around it to see if any chalk slid--a common claim. As well, I set a Barbie up on the chalk tray with a piece of chalk in her lap. She sat there the whole time we were there, until we came back the second night from our hunt at the jail. Before leaving, I checked the Barbie and chalk and all was fine. We came back and Julie noted that Barbie had fallen over. How she did it, I have no clue. She still had the chalk on her lap. The doll had been sitting upright for 36 hours without falling over before. I tried to see how she could fall over and the only possibly way to was to come up under her legs and lift up, applying some pressure.

I did a psychic read (post from Monday).

Then, in our huge schoolhouse room, sitting around a table, I performed a seance. Yeah, I know what you're saying "a seance?" But, part of what our team wants to do is test all the theories and all the methods and find out if anything in any of them is efficacious. As a psychic, being a seance medium is a great way to connect and activate things in the room or perhaps gather more information. I have my own method for performing a seance that leaves everyone quite well protected, but sometimes leaves activity around us for some time, so it's a win/win situation.

During the seance, I was able to pick up on a tall slender man with a hook nose and dark hair in overalls who felt protective of the children there and always waited for the last child to leave so he could lock up. His name was Wayne, I believe. I also picked up on a sort of uptight teacher named Lydia. As well, a little girl with dark hair and bangs. We did an EVP recording during the seance, and when we review evidence, we'll know if we got anything.

We had some funky things happen there. The last time I was there, we were doing and EVP session and I got up with the EMF meter and went to the area near the chalkboard where I felt a girl was present. The meter went bonkers. Baseline there was almost nonexistent. I asked her to come with me back to my seat and the high counts followed me back and then stopped. I asked her to go back with me and the meter went off again as I walked back to the chalkboard. I then told her to stay there and I'd be right back. I walked back to my chair with baseline EMF reading. I went back to the chalkboard and it went bonkers and I had her come back to the seat with me and it remained high until I sat down. It was interesting, but hardly proof of anything. Then, this time, one of our team members took several meters and found a hot spot in front of the chalkboard. We took our meters and figured out the shape and size of this thing. It continued for long minutes before it went away. It never came back again. We asked the owner and there were no electrical lines under the floorboards. It was interesting that it never came back. The more interesting thing is that the first time I was there and we were talking to the children, it happened. This time, after the seance, it happened. The next night--no EMF spikes, but we also did not try to make contact with any occupants of the room. Hmm....

Then, the second night, it just got weird-o-rama. Poor Julie. She is so used to the antics that she doesn't even think about it. She woke up during the night to use the restroom and walked right past us all with flashlights trying to figure out what had been making knocking and scratching sounds. She just sauntered past us, glancing at the flashlights and closed the bathroom door. I had to laugh. My sis is very used to the unexplained. The knocks and scratches continued and when the men fell asleep, I heard some more sounds and then a ding as if something clanked the brass spittoon near the fireplace. I knew right away what the sound was, but there as nothing even near the spittoon. At one point, one of the men sleeping near the chalkboard heard whispering in his ear. That was the same place I had heard the girl the last time I stayed there.

Well, it was an unusual and interesting stay and we do plan to go back some time with a bigger group of people to try out a few rooms. I don't have any doubts this charming inn has some unseen occupants, but they all seem to be quite playful and happy where they live.


(Check out this little flattened scorpion we found in the room. Apparently, someone stepped on him, but luckily with shoes on!)

Hunt: Abandoned Gila County Jail

(Me, Julie in our dorky ghost hunting vests, every pocket brimming with tools and necessary items)

It was a crazy weekend. I will have a great deal to report on here in coming days. Our team, POE (Paranormal Observation & Experimentation), did a 2-night hunt. The first night, we hunted in a huge schoolroom we rented in a B&B. The second night, we got an abandoned jail to ourselves. I still need to sort through all the audio and video to see what evidence we accrued, but suffice to say that both places proved to be more active than we imagined and in ways we hadn't imagined.

I'm going to be showing pics and videos from the hunt at the jail in coming days, but I figured I'd break it up and tell you in this post about what happened at the prison. The four of us had the prison for 3 hours alone. It was a 3-story narrow building. The bottom floor housed the maximum security which was a bit submarine-feeling. The second floor was divided between men's on one side, women's on the other. There was also a cell that sat alone where a man awaiting trial was shot by a sniper through the window from the building across the street and he died. There was also a hanging there and a man who leaped to his death from a catwalk that lead the prisoners to the courthouse. The top floor was a huge open room and left for cots for lesser criminals. When I was there 5 years ago, I saw a full-body apparition up there and so I was excited to go again and see what happened. I had a good sense of the man and his life and name and personality. I hoped to use that to help with an EVP session.

We began by putting recording devices in the areas I pointed out as being particularly high energy. Then, we went outside. We divided into teams of 2. The first team went in to the bottom floor maximum security and walked around, talked out loud, asking questions, listening, and using the FLIR thermal imager. When the pair left, the next pair went in and went through the second floor. I was on that team and we ran into some very strange EMF readings. We traced them with several meters. We made some speculation about what might be happening and decided to study it in other rooms. In the mean time, we stood there, asking questions and peering into the cells from the guard's walk. I watched as something dark and about the height and width of a man blocked out about 5-6 bars as it moved along and then moved back. I looked behind me to see if there was anyway something moved that could have blotted the light, but there was nothing. I raced over to the cell and we began to ask questions.

We switched off again. This time, the other pair went up to the second floor and we waited outside where we did more EMF testing. We found some intense EMF readings alongside the building, but at times they would vanish and it was hard to determine what was happening. We did consider that there were power lines nearby and a microwave repeater station.


(Julie and FLIR)

It was then our turn to go into the maximum security section downstairs. My partner and I went around the guard's walk and I turned a corner and ran right into a pocket of prickly electrical feeling energy and broke into immediate goosebumps. It disappeared and then I continued on to the corner where I ran into the same feeling again, except this time it also presented a kind of vibrating feeling in my body. It lasted much longer than the earlier one. I studied the area around me, fully expecting to see a full-body apparition. It was a similar feeling in the body that I've had when it's about to manifest. When it was gone, we went and asked questions with the recording devices around and met the other half of our team.



The four of us went up to the attic room where I had seen an apparition before. We set up two chairs. I sat in one chair and put a laser grid between myself and the other chair. We set an EMF meter on the chair and a recording device. The others stood across the room away from me and I began a half hour long interactive EVP session, asking questions, probing the room with my mind. I changed tactics often to find what might strike a cord. I asked him to come forward. I asked him to get near the meter and set it off. I then said that I was lonely and could use a friend. Then, all of a sudden, I felt a hand around my left arm, just above the elbow. The arm became covered in goosebumps and the hairs stood on end, up the arm and along the left side of my neck and left cheek and jaw area.

We heard a few sounds and ran video with IR, FLIR, and studied the laser grid looking for anything that might happen. When we were done, we had to pack up and leave. We all had some strange experiences there, but the review of video and audio will tell much. I would be utterly shocked if we don't get any EVPs from this amazing hunt. The place felt very uncomfortable and disturbed that night. The EMF was insane, the barometric pressure dropped in some areas where sensations were felt of pressure and "weirdness."

Even though it was very hot and humid and we were all worn down, the team went back to our haunted room at the inn and talked for hours about the field of paranormal research, theories, philosophy and such. We are the think tank I always dreamed of forming where we don't have any preconceived notions and we seek ways to come up with new testing methods and theories with open minds.

I'll be sharing the other hunt we had the night prior at the haunted B&B. I will also be sharing lots of video and pics and eventually audio when it's been reviewed.

Hint 3

POE team

Everyone Can Talk to Ghosts With a Computer or Smart Phone

(**Admittedly, a fun parlor game and perhaps someone can have some luck and get something out of it that they can apply**)

According to the speaker that I listened to recently from the WindBridge Institute, one does not need to go to a haunted place to speak to spirits, you can make the spirits come to you. How do you think seances and mediums have been doing this for centuries?

There's some interesting and free software online that makes it possible to work on your skills at speaking to the other side. Have fun with these and report back any results. I'm curious.

EVP maker program

Geist Chat: Well, seriously a program that supposedly allows you to text with ghosts...

This program is interesting. You can ask a question and listen for a minute or a minute and a half, writing down every word you make out and then look and see if those words line up with the question you asked.

Now, for fun, check this out.

The Devil's Box and What in the Hell Is She Up To Now?

Here's the concept of the devil's box in paranormal circles: You take six mirrors of equal size and make a cube with them. Now, you sit back and wait for strange voices and growls to emanate.

So, being the curious and skeptical creature, I made one for our next hunt at the end of the month. I'm willing to try such a device and see if it has some strange merit.

To their credit, whoever thought this up had an interesting concept. I am intrigued by the what I see to be firm correlations between feng shui (passage of energy through a room determined by the placement of objects, orientation of the room and windows, doors, fireplaces, et cetera) with activity. Mirrors are hell for bouncing around energy and a mirrored box turned mirror side out in the center of the room technically should make everyone in the room unable to relax because at all points in which you sit, energy is reflected back on you. Now, you take these mirrors and turn them against each other inward and you have the devil's box. We will place a recording device inside of the box and leave it alone in our room when we go out to supper on our hunt and see what we get.

So, what's up with the crazy redhead? Don't ask about the love life, it's a huge vacuum in space and perhaps even swallowing up a quasar at this point...

At the beginning of August expect me to start vlogging some and also reporting back on the experiments we're going to be performing. I also am planning to cover the testing of old spiritualist's tools such as psychomanteums, Ouija, seances, devil's box and more. I want to talk about the basis for why they were utilized and some merits they might actually possess and their shortcomings.

I will be expanding my YouTube channel even more (button bottom right of this screen). I hope to start doing more IR video, more alone in scary places videos, some under 5-minute documentaries and just some totally goofy shit.

On the writing front, Julie and I are finishing up writing "Kickin' Up Dust (Getting Lost to Find Ourselves)" and have a blog set up for it where you can see pics and hear about our crazy road trips and videos. We're sort of what we call the Thelma and Louise if the paranormal world. Even though my "Sheriff Kai: Zombie Outlaw Killer" blog hasn't started it's 30-day countdown to publishing, the unedited opening scene is up for your enjoyment (hopefully).

This October, Dale will no doubt be going insane and possessed as usual, but expect me to cover a lot of Halloween things I'll be attending, as well as hopefully organizing another blogging zombie walk where participating bloggers put a list of links to all the blogs involved and readers can click on links and go from blog to blog seeing/reading zombie related stuff.

Besides going to a lecture next week that I'll be reporting on and also sharing pics and vids of Julie and I urban exploring, our team is also doing a 2-night hunt and a Bigfoot hunt this year. We also plan to do a UFO hunt, perhaps a hunt at Vulture Mine and other unexpected testing of unusual places and unusual hunting methods.

Yeah, I take the hunt seriously, but the peripherals like the ride up and the ride down and the reporting back on the findings--I'm a total goofball. I know when to be serious and when to yuck it up (though I'm guessing past bed partners might not agree with that claim).

**Join me here for Lonely on a Friday Night tonight if you're just hanging out**

Yeah, I'm the "Mind Fuck Sniper," so what?

What did I ever do to earn such a moniker?

It probably began in Sunday school when I told the teacher that women did not come from men, men came from women. I explained that men had milk ducts and externalized their genitals with the right hormones in utero. In fact, if a man played with his nipples regularly enough, he could lactate. I might not have said it that tactfully.

It could have been in high school when a really uptight anthropology teacher gave my group the Mayans as the subject for a nice dry oral report filled with facts. I tore up the instructions, told my partners that we're baking a cake the shape of a Mayan temple. We arrived to class and instead of standing up in front with papers in hand, we sat at a table with the cake and one girl was the emcee as the other girl was my interviewer. You see, I was an anthropologist who traveled back in time and stayed with a Mayan family for a few weeks to study them. I gave them all the information in the interview that they needed for a complete report. Then, we promptly gave everyone a piece of Mayan cake. My friends cursed at me, certain the proper teacher would fail us. As it turned out, we all got 3 A's, so we didn't have to do the next two tests.

I don't mean to stir up the pot, but I always do. I hate complacency. I hate to talk about something, I want to DO it! I want experiences. I want memories. I want to learn things by putting my hands into it and mucking up in the debris. Everything is entertaining for me. Everything in the world has secret dimensions to be discovered like some kind of Chinese puzzle. I'm a dog with a bone when it comes to life's mysteries.

I appreciate all the readers that have jumped onboard here at GHT and Hug-A-Blogger and my Midnight Arroyo western horror series blogs for Josiah and Kai, POE (my research group) blogs, and my books on Kindle & Nook.

Expect some new features on GHT including the introduction of some hosted vlogs starting August first. I want to spend more face-to-face time with you and bring you in through pics, videos, and stories, the crazy adventures I'm getting into this year including some ghost hunts, UFO hunt, Bigfoot hunt and more. I want to take you to scary places and video what it's like to be alone there. I want to make this blog more of an interactive vehicle for adventures with y'all in the back seat as I take my road trips and explore the unknown.

Yeah, I fuck with your mind, and don't take anything too damned seriously, but you really can count on me to show you a new way of looking at things, opening your mind, treating you like the intelligent beings that you are, and giving you a few good chuckles from this brassy redhead.

In other words, thank you all, for letting me fuck with your minds. (Please note that this does differ from letting me fuck your brains out, that's a whole `nother issue)

Ghostly Experiences and Fourth Dimension

Carl Sagan (one of my heroes along with da Vinci and Tesla) does a fine job of explaining something that makes me ponder...is the afterlife the fourth dimension? If the 2nd dimension is what we use to conceptualize things we will make, like drawing a picture of a machine before building it, then are we in third dimension a conceptual piece for a reality in the fourth dimension?

Something to ponder.

Introductions: How to Talk to Ghosts

If someone were to come into your house with a group of noisy people, set up equipment in all your rooms and then promptly start to question you right and left, wouldn't you be put off? I can't imagine wanting to answer questions and follow their instructions. I'd be telling them to get the hell out of my house!

In an ideal situation, equipment is set up quietly and with as little speaking as possible. Leave the site and have some supper. Come back later. There is a resting period for disruption that is important. I've learned that after a recent hunt at BirdCage when the place had a public ghost hunt and then the minute the folks left, we set up our equipment to question the ghosts that had just endured a day of visitors and an evening of people sitting around a table asking questions.

There are better ways to coax any intelligence that might be in a location and it involves the general niceties that pay off amongst the living. Ideally, I would let one person at a time enter the site, walk from room to room, introducing himself/herself and talking about simple things like "I'm Ben. I'm a carpenter, raised in Missouri. I have a wife and two children. I like fishing and playing guitar." It helps to also say things that you would as a guest in anyone's home. "This is a beautiful building. You are very lucky to call this home. I love the high ceilings..." And so forth. Be certain that these investigators use their name often. We want any references on EVP to be directed at any member who seemed to strike a note with those unseen presences. It could be something as simple as being from their home state or having two daughters or having the name of a loved one.

Once each member has gone in alone, groups of 2 can enter, leaving the others outside and far from the building so their lights and voices do not carry. Mix up the team members throughout the night. Sometimes, Harry might be a favorite, but when he's with loudmouth Bill, no one wants to talk to him, so be sure Harry later on is with a new partner. You don't know until EVPs are reviewed, which person and which conversation and which combination was most receptive. We can learn a lot from doing this over and over again to find out if a member is more approachable or perhaps less so and what techniques were met with enthusiasm.

Go with the situation and trust your instincts. If you think you should just shoot the breeze and talk about fishing and the weather, do so. If you want to whistle a tune from their era, go right ahead. There is no need to call out "can you please give us a sign of our your presence?" Instead, act as if you are with a person you know is in the room. "Hey, if I knock this tune out, can you finish it for me?" (shave and a haircut...) Or, if they are from an earlier era, try a simple "If I knock, will you knock?"

I prefer to look around the room and address as if there is someone I know is in there with me. If you act like you can't see or hear them, it's very frustrating. Should your eyes rove over the room, at some point, you might be looking in a location that gives a glimmer of hope they are being seen, should what we're dealing with prove to be other worldly visitors. This approach, as well, will help us learn if we're dealing with intelligence or residual, or something all together new and unknown.

You can always thank them, let them know you're leaving and that you'd like to come back again if it is okay with them. This allows for one last reply.

Frank's Ghost Boxes

Do you remember the seances and ectoplasm, Ouija and table tipping of the old spiritualist's movement in terms of talking to the other side?

Guess what? We have a new springing culture of pseudoscience spiritualism within the ghost hunting community still. We see it a lot with people like Ryan Buell who plant magical coins around properties and bring in religious figures to perform exorcisms.

The use of Frank's Ghost Box is just the same as turn-of-the-century spiritualists communications methods without the cheesy ectoplasm extrusion, but with all the bells and whistles of cone and table tipping used as communications with the spirit world.

How does a Frank's Ghost Box work? Well, I think this person best described it on his site:

Frank's spirit receiver starts off with a standard white noise generator which is fed through a random voltage circuit of Frank's own design. The random voltage is linked to an AM radio receiver which reacts to the voltage by tuning to a specific spot on the radio dial. This is known as voltage tuning and is a common function of late 80s and early 90s radio receivers. Though various radio stations are turned in for a split second every so often along with regular static, the devices also allows the spirits to interact with the device and create their own vocals through the receiver and for lack of a better term, talk through the device.

A newer version of the box simply tunes back and fourth through the AM band which Frank is calling the "Sweep" method. At first, he believed that the random voltage design is what allowed it to work but after using the sweep method, he has since changed his mind as it seems to do a better job. Frank has made his plans available on the Internet for anyone who is interested in experimenting with his device. He also makes available his own receiver plans for those who want to take it a step further and create the entire box from start to finish.

Frank has created at least 25 versions of the box to date and handed them to several individuals for ongoing tests. The initial results have been pretty positive and many people have experienced some kind of communication which they would regard as evidence that the box really works. Unfortunately, the difficult part about Frank's design is his using the AM radio band as the medium for receiving the voices. This is one fact that makes it easy for any skeptic to debunk the operation of his device. For starters, the device will receive little snippets from various radio stations as it scans through the AM band. At any given minute the device could spew some various words from passing stations that could be put together as a sentence and claimed to be from a spirit when in fact its just audio matrixing.



I'm not even sure why I cover this ridiculous device. When I had my son's intercom in our home for when he was a baby, I would hear neighbor's conversations, sometimes just a few words, but it would scare the bejesus out of me to hear that in my baby's bedroom. Sometimes, I'd pick up the wireless phone and hear a conversation going on from nearby. Another time, a car with a cell or satellite phone came over my answering machine without the phone ringing, just live speech through the box which was a handy receiver (just like a Frank's Box--a receiver of RF signals).

Any time someone wants to set a TV or a radio for "white noise" between stations to talk to the spirit world, I'm about to go into a conniption seizure. No, this is no more valid than using a psychic's impressions. Let's step away from the spiritualist's movement in regards to paranormal activity and instead concentrate on the point at which this phenomena shows itself in our physical world. No matter what origin it might be launched from, it does not utilize our own RF to communicate nor does it call us on the phone or send us email messages.

The first order of business is to figure out if this even sees or hears us, is sentient and spirit-based, or if it's something altogether different like parallel dimensions, invisible intelligent life form, time glitches, or simply recordings of the past. If we try to use psychics, mediums, Ouija, and radio frequencies, we have just made all that "proof" completely and totally hokum and not admissible.

Step away from the ridiculous Ghost Box and move on, please.

Was That a Ghost?

I am asked all the time, "hey, this thing happened to me, was it paranormal?"

I've helped numerous people through the process of determination. No matter what the case, I took them through the same 3-point system to come out the other side with a "probably" or "probably not" result.

This 3-point system I named "Trinity of Relevance" and it involves context, belief system and explanatory style. Those three components determine what might have colored your experience and perceptions or shown it to be strikingly authentically paranormal.

I decided to put the process in a book with quizzes and lots of real life examples to help people through the Trinity of Relevance and into other realms such as haunted objects, haunted homes, those with latent psychic abilities and other paranormal oddities.

I am proud of my book. I do not profess to know everything about how the paranormal world works. Anyone who tells you what a ghost is, how it works, why it works, is passing on nothing more than tales told from one generation to the other.

The truth is, we may not know what comprises the paranormal world and how it works, but at some point, it interacts with our physical world and we can see, hear, smell and feel it. It is a truly unanswered puzzle, but we can make some assumptions about it by how weakly it communicates, how little it can really touch us, and how fleeting its interactions are. Armed with such knowledge, we are no longer afraid of the paranormal world, but are avid observers and journalists of its wonders.

The buttons on the right hand side of the blog take you to Kindle (Amazon) and Nook (Barnes & Noble) where you can purchase the book. I am very proud of it, as my legacy in the ghost hunting world and contributions made on the basis of experiencing the paranormal, being a logic-based person, and foremost a counselor. In fact, much of what I teach in the book are also the principles by which I teach those with anxiety disorders how to recover themselves and their lives. These are tools for daily living for an effective and rewarding life. One can never go wrong with more life skills.

EVPs: Disembodied Voices, Recording Ghosts

EVP: Electronic voice phenomena. This is when a voice shows up on a recording device that was not heard by those nearby. These can be explained by many means:

Holding the recording device and shifting in the hand
Moving about the room while recording device in hand
Sounds not tagged (announced) by those in the room, such as stomach growls, coughs.
Sounds in the room ignored by others such as a furnace groaning
Created by a paranormal source

Disembodied voice: This is a voice heard by the people in the room as if someone spoke to them. Occupants will gasp and and ask “what was that?” This will also show up on recording devices, as it is audible within the room as any other noise is. The source of this could be:

Something in the room that no one paid attention to such as a cat
Someone outside being heard through vents or windows
Trickery
Something paranormal in nature

Basics about the recording process:
A microphone works like a human ear. Sound waves travel through the air and are picked up by the human ear and the membranes inside vibrate and change the pressure inside the ear. A microphone has a diaphragm that vibrates like the inner ear and that vibration creates electrical signals that mimic the fluctuations of the original sound.

ANALOG AND DIGITAL

Analog devices require magnetic tape. You know, the old fashioned cassettes, reel-to-reel and 8-track. A magnetic tape has three basic components: a fine metal oxide powder, a binder and the backing. The powder is iron oxide, or some related material, such as chromium dioxide. The binder glues the metal powder to the backing in a thin, uniform layer. These strips of tape pass at an even rate of speed through heads. The heads are small, specialized electromagnets. Electric currents pass through them, creating magnetic fields that read or write patterns on the passing tape. Electronic circuits connected to the heads convert these signals into into sound data.

Digital recording devices work by capturing sound waves by a microphone, which transmits the vibrations of its diaphragm (much like our ear drum) to an electrical wave. This signal is then sent down an audio cable into a recording device or computer sound card. Analog audio must be converted before it can be recorded as digital sound. In many cases, this is accomplished by a computer sound card, though stand-alone digital recorders perform the same process. When the electrical signal from the microphone is received by the card or recorder, hardware converters change the analog signal to digital code that can be read by a computer. The converter takes extremely rapid "snapshots" of the changes in electric wave patterns (between 16,000 and 96,000 per second) and outputs a code that allows a computer to mimic the original sound pressures. The more snapshots a converter takes per second, the more accurate the digital copy will be.

In the process of sifting through all this information, EVP specialists are dealing with so many variables, it is mind-blowing. Imagine what the amateur trying to capture a voice is up against? EVP versus disembodied voice? Sounds created by the paranormal versus something/someone in the room? Digital or analog? Yikes!

Here's our dilemma when dealing with EVPs: A true EVP is not heard by our ears, so we can assume it is either:

a. Out of the range of human hearing.
b. Not made with sound waves (thus we do not hear them), but are directly imprinted on the medium in which case it would be doing it at the electrical level of the recording scenario and not the vibrating level.
c. Creates some type of vibrations at the point of the microphone to pass through the diaphragm, but not far enough away our ears pick them up. Have you ever cupped your hands around your ears to make them larger and then face something that is making sound, like a television? You can see how critical being able to capture those sound waves is.

Let's look now at the quality of EVPs. They are popularly placed in 3 main classes:
Class A: Obvious language anyone can understand without prompting, hearing the same thing.
Class B: Obvious language, although different people may hear different words.
Class C: Noise, not necessarily language.

EVPs often are a word or a few words in a row, but not consistent. What does this tell us about the process? That, however it is created, it is not easy to sustain or we would have marvelous full conversations. Knowing this, the process must be fleeting and concentrated. But, if these “voices” are not sounding audibly for us, then they must be making a shortcut right to the device. There might be an advantage to analog magnetic tape in that you have medium (iron oxide) that could easily receive electrical impulses and record sound more directly than a digital device.

Potential tests:
What if we set up a sensitive EMF meter near a voice recorder? Would we have the possibility of lining up a spike in electrical activity and syncing it with a recorded EVP to see if a burst of electrical near the device created a recording at that moment?

What if we set up a sound wave detector near the device to see if sound waves are the form in which audio is getting imprinted in the device?

What if we try disconnecting the microphone to see if it is even a part of the process of recording an EVP?

One thing I am big about is coming up with ways to track paranormal activity like one would track an animal in the forest to learn its habits, its lifestyle and where it keeps its home. We can make a lot of determinations in the field if we isolate the element in which EVPs are recorded and then we can learn to detect better when one is about to be laid down and even possibly how to "feed" the phenomena enough of its necessary energy to make for longer contacts.

There is yet another area of EVP to be explored and that is the human/psychic factor. Are we imprinting on devices? As a psychic, I would like to try some experiments in this. If we can have bursts of energy to create poltergeist-like activities, then why not be able to create electrical impulses that could affect recording devices? Just look at what solar flares can do to the earth and our electronics and now imagine a person near a device with a burst of energy...

Lots to think about in the field. And, we're still babes in the woods, barely past the "stone age" of turn-of-the-century spiritualists. Still, the strides we've made bode well for the future generations.

EVP: Birdcage Theater

Well, at least we know that gambling whoring cowboys were polite.

I have yet to find a good way to put this online. I'm the queen of finding a backdoor into something. I videotaped the Audacity screen while putting the EVP on the soundtrack.

Background: We were in the BirdCage Theater in Tombstone in May 2011. The team went in pairs to walk around and introduce themselves to this gaming place/whore house. So, I made the split second decision to be the new redheaded gal as part of the entertainment. I introduced myself as a good time gal and said I was ready to sex them up. At the halfway point (9-10 seconds), you hear what almost sounds like a cat meow or "naw" and directly after it a man with a drawl saying "thank you."

Conditions: We had 16 recorders set up around the three rooms of the building. When this was taken, the group was in the upper loft room where the hearse is located. I was in the main gaming room. A recorder down below in the center of the high-priced gaming room where the prostitute cribs were located is where the voice was picked up. There is an open window in the wall that peers out into the room I was standing in from the basement room where this was recorded. Anywhere you are in this building, you can hear what's going on in the other rooms, as it is tri-level and open.

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I am packing all these things. I thought I'd share my secrets!

EVPs and Sound

"If you're lucky, you get audio and that is like what the plaster casts of footprints are to Bigfoot, some of the only "tangible" evidence we gather."

Getting EVPs is very rewarding and also not all that easy. In an ideal setting, you cover yourself as best as possible like our Sound Man. If he gets an EVP, I get chills. Why? Because of his methods. He is not an "everything is a ghost!" kind of guy, nor would he put out a Class C and say it's a ghost. He also is willing to put down almost 2 dozen recorders to cover a site.

Let's review the common classifications:
Class A: Obviously language, and everyone who hears it, hears the same thing without being prompted.
Class B: People might hear differing things, but it does sound like language.
Class C: Noises, not necessarily language.

Some do's and don'ts:
Do not do an EVP session holding the recorder or holding the recorder while walking around. Set the recorder down, preferably with enough distance that stomach growls will not be heard, but if your stomach does growl, please "tag" or announce it on the recording "Disregard, that was a stomach growl" or "Disregard, coughing."

Always announce when entering and exiting a room because ideally recorders are set up in the rooms. Believe it or not, often a question asked is answered in another room. Do discern if footsteps were you or something other worldly, it's best to say "Nancy entering room with John." and "Nancy exiting room with John." The person who reviews audio very much appreciates knowing who was shuffling about in a room.

Keep notes about the ambient sound of the building. "This building faced a noisy road and the front parlor and kitchen faced the noise." This way, when listening to recordings from those rooms, one can figure out the roaring in the background. "Air conditioner was in the upstairs hall, turning on and off during the evening."

A controlled EVP session is a great thing to have, gathering every investigator into one room to sit down and call out questions 15-20 seconds apart and tagging any shuffling noises amongst them. This way, should things be recorded in other rooms, everyone is present and accounted for.

The problem with many investigations is too many people wandering ad lib anywhere they desire. Try and leave the team outside and away from the building so their voices aren't caught and let a team of 2 walk the building and ask questions while tagging their entrance and exit from the rooms. Later, when listening to the recordings, all bodies are accounted for.

Do be sure to sync up the time on all the recorders. In an ideal situation, more than one recorder in a room is best. Use masking tape with a number on them attached to each recorder, draw a map of the building and put a number on the map where each recorder sat.

I like to use Audacity sound program and it's free online. It shows you the sound waves so you can see where a voice shows up. I only use speed and pitch at times to help discern something better. Slowing it down a bit and bringing down the pitch can make it very clear. Any more effects and you tend to get things that don't even resemble the original wording, so be careful. This program is also great because you can highlight the area you want to hear in a loop.

Here's the facts about ghost hunting: your chances of capturing visual are almost nil. The majority of what you find will be anecdotal testimony of what happened to investigators. If you're lucky, you get audio and that is like what the plaster casts of footprints are to Bigfoot, some of the only "tangible" evidence we gather. Take care and concern using recorders. They are your friend/they are your enemy. If you tag well, place them well, use lots of them on site, you up your chances of "proof" of haunting, but if you do a piss poor job, it'll be a nightmare to know if it's genuine or sounds unaccounted for.

Our sound guy also uses a very smart approach; if a voice/sound shows up on more than one recorder in the room, it's a sound in the room and if it's on only one recorder in the room, it's the genuine thing. Remember, EVPs are different than regular speaking. When I speak in a room, the sound waves carry and all devices catch it. A "spirit" voice; however, does not use sound waves, but records directly onto the device. How this is done is still a mystery and one of many, but knowing they are capable of this, gives us yet another avenue to backtrack a spirit and discern what it can and cannot affect.

Birdcage Theater: Tombstone, Arizona

This hunt was the beginning of POE. We hadn't formed yet, but when we came together for a hunt, we realized something; four of us in this group of 7 were adept, serious, intelligent and focused, as well as hoping to do hunts without clients and counseling, simply focusing on research, experiments, gathering information and coming to conclusions about paranormal activity.



So, this hunt at the BirdCage was not only a highly anticipated hunt in a place we had all wanted to go for a very long time, but it brought us together in conversation and speculation.



The members of our group, I will keep anonymous. There are four of us. I will refer to the senior male as "sound guy," the junior male as "science guy," and the other female as "photography girl."

We had a group of 7 of us that night and I tend to like to go with the feeling of the building, the way it's laid out and the personal energy of the people involved. The actual attack for the evening was planned out on the spot as I observed the people and the building.



The entire building was well mic'd everywhere. It was quite impressive. We had the usual equipment and with the breakers thrown, the place was powerless with a basically undetectable baseline EMF reading.

Some of the obstacles about this building included piping throughout the ceilings with dripping sounds, some creaking and settling, perhaps even some mice scratching around. The rooms are in split levels and creates an insane sound trap where everything can be heard in every room quite easily. It also was near the streets, but we lucked to have the place from 10-1 on a Sunday night without a person anywhere in sight.

During the night, we experienced some goosebumps, feelings of being touched, voices, footsteps, a documented cold spot with EMF spike at the same time, feelings of being watched.



Hard evidence? We got some EVPs that were impressive including one that seems to correlate with a voice captured there 4 years previously. This is something that gives us lots of speculation. I pulled up an archive of American dialects, knowing I'd heard that dialect somewhere else. I narrowed it down to a region. So, the next question is, did anyone die at the BC who was from that region?

Techniques: We had everyone sit around a central table while groups of 2 went off and introduced themselves to the rooms of the building, by calling out their names and something about them. Everyone assumed a friendly and affable demeanor as friends, parents, easygoing folks. I made the decision to present myself as a brassy redhead ready to give it away free to the gambling cowboys. This actually produced a "Thank you" response from a man with a southern drawl on a recorder. I spent a little time alone in the basement teasing and flirting with any lingering gamblers. We also spent some time as a group focusing on willing the apparition to appear. We did a controlled EVP session and we let 2 people stay inside for 20 minutes while the rest of us left and walked far away from the building so we could control the sounds in the environment and know that when those 2 people were there, they were the only voices that should be in the rooms.

Now that we are planning our next study in July, we will go over the location, history, geology, reported happenings, and come up with a series of things to try for that particular environment. Much of what we will do is planned, but until we get there and see what occurs, we will have to be ready to adapt. There is no set way to do a study, no cookie cutter. There is a team with equipment, concepts, and complete adaptability on the spot. This is the kind of hunting I've been waiting to do with a group of smart minds, thinking on our feet.

More research to follow.

The Purpose of POE

This team was formed after years of ghost hunting and realizing that we desired something more of a research nature.

Proving a haunting, counseling, dealing with clients were muddying the waters and making it difficult to figure out phenomena; how it works, what causes it, and how to enhance and lengthen interactions.

We can all agree that since humans are experiencing this with their senses, whether this is of a spiritual nature of not, it launched itself into our physical world. That point of entry is the place to begin to understand how it manifests and why.

It is our hope that we can go to historic and haunted locations, taking each one separately and planning experiments and methods based on the phenomena reported, the construction and geology, history and other characteristics, and perhaps narrow the field of possibilities closer and closer to that reliable and repeatable element.

As we go and perform experiments, not only will findings and methods be reported here, but videos will be performed covering everything from the interesting road trips around the desert southwest to tours of the building, setting up and performing experiments and findings. As soon as we begin the first experiments, a YouTube channel will be set up with a button on this site so that our videos can be shared.