This investigation took place on July 11th, 2009 in a private residence located in Cortland, Ohio. The home was built in 1920, and is occupied by a husband and wife along with their 2 teenage children. During our initial interview, the wife and children all related what they believed were paranormal events of some type. These included the reported sighting of a "black mass" in the master bedroom, voices in the girls bedroom, the feeling of being watched in the living room, and the sighting of a white orb in the dining room by the husband. A general feeling of unease was reported by all except for the husband. He had really not witnessed anything he would consider paranormal in nature. The one point that gave us some concern as investigators was that it appeared that the son had dabbled in witchcraft, and we did not know, nor do we still, as to what depth this experimentation had went. The mother was noticeably more "emotionally distraught" than the other members of the family about what was occurring, the daughter seemed mildly bothered, while the husband and son were more curious than anything else.
This investigation was going to have a pretty strict time schedule because of the clients commitment early the next morning, so we knew that our planning was going to have to be really well thought out before we entered the house. A total of 5 investigators went on the investigation, and I myself participated (though I normally don't) simply to try and help gather as much evidence as possible in the short amount of time we had. Based on the statements from the occupants, it appeared the majority of activity was occurring on the second floor of the home. Upon entering the house, Aron, Danielle, and Amanda, our newest member in training, went on a baseline sweep of the house with K-2 meters. Cindyjo set up a DVR camera with IR capability in the son's bedroom, while I took some temperature readings. After recording some initial data, we broke up into 3 teams (I was by myself simply because I started in the attic and it was a very confined area), and commenced gathering evidence. Periodically we rotated to different areas of the house so all the teams pretty much covered the entire home. Each team was pretty much identically equipped with K-2 meters, digital cameras, and voice recorders for EVP's.
During the course of the investigation we took roughly 400 digital photographs which showed nothing other than an orb here and there. As written above, the mother was the most emotional of all the inhabitants in the home. We did find many area's where we had spikes in our meters. The father then relayed to us that much of the wiring was old, and in spots probably not up to current building codes. We did relay to the mother that some people are more prone to be influenced by things of this nature, and could very well explain some of the apprehensive feelings she had been having.
We did catch one piece of interesting footage with the DVR. The DVR was set up in the son's bedroom pointing out to a small hallway/landing. Looking at the camera view, if you were to walk out his door an immediate left would place you at the bathroom. An immediate right would have you at the stairs and the daughters bedroom. When this was shot there was nobody in the hallway with Cindyjo. You will see her come from the daughters room, and knock on the parents bedroom door to tell the other investigators it's time to switch. Watch her right elbow. She felt something, and then the other investigator had a spike in her K-2 meter. We had nothing else like this in the entire footage, other than the camera going out of focus twice while nobody was upstairs.
I have sent this footage to three other reputable investigators and two of them are basically on the fence as to what it is. As of right now we are calling it "abnormal" more than paranormal. If you have any idea what it is or what happened let me know by sending me an e-mail. We sincerely want your honest opinion. We do not want you tell us it's paranormal, unless this is what you truely believe. We are more interested in knowing what it is in case this ever happens again.
The video can be seen through the media player, or by clicking on the link below with a larger view through your monitor. If you're running a Firefox browser you will probably need additional media plug-ins to view the footage with the media player, if you have none currently installed.
| EVP # 1 |
| EVP # 2 |
| EVP # 3 |
| EVP # 4 |
| EVP # 5 |
In EVP #1 Danielle and Cindy are in the daughter's bedroom and Danielle asks if something is attempting to hide from them. The response we hear is "trying."
EVP # 2 Steve is alone in the daughter's and asks for a name. In between questioning we decipher the phrase "here."
With EVP #3 Aron is in the son's room in which Steve has just left. He asks if the spirits happy the bald guy left. We hear the answer of "hell no' right before Aron starts to speak again.
EVP # 4 takes place on the main floor you'll hear Amanda working on her camera, out of the blue we hear a voice say "oh god."
The final EVP, # 5, the homeowner and Danielle are in the dining room talking about bats. Mixed in the conversation, we hear "get out."
Update 8-21-09 Up to this point the family has reported no further "activities", and according to them, everything has been calm and quiet since the cleansing and blessing.
The daughter of the family was present for the case reveal when the founders went to present the evidence. The parent's, along with others, had always wondered if the daughter had some psychic abilities. After the evidence was presented, she had more questions, so Cindyjo spoke with her, and gave her a book that she thought would help her out. Below you can read the card she mailed to Cindyjo.
