Dark World: Into the Shadows with the Lead Investigator of the Ghost Adventures Crew (11 page)

Death was a familiar friend to the old bastion, and the paranormal activity that we expected to find there did not disappoint. There were several hot spots, but the fort’s kitchen was especially intriguing. A tour guide named Daryl had experiences of being watched and had heard strange voices in the kitchen, so we decided to use him as a trigger object and see if we could entice a spirit to make contact with him. After all, he was not just some ordinary guy—his ancestors had fought at Fort Erie. But we got more than we bargained for.

We sent Daryl into the kitchen alone and in his period garb, but with video support so Aaron and I could watch him from our base. He had a digital recorder and we set up two IR cameras in the room with him. Daryl tried to make contact with whoever was there, starting with basic questions. We discovered later that a disembodied voice answered him.

“What happened?” a voice asked. Daryl did not hear it but it was captured on his digital recorder. Could this have been a soldier asking how he died? Moments afterward, Daryl saw something that he could not believe and those of us watching him on the monitors also found incredible. A black arm moved on the wall in front of him. It was clearly a right arm with four to five digits. It dangled momentarily as if someone was standing still. Then it rose up, as if to scratch its chest, and then moved away. It was so apparent that Daryl saw it with his own eyes as it happened. Even more shocking was the shape of the digits. They did not look like human fingers, but more like a claw with talons.

“Jesus Christ. What the hell was that?” Daryl said out loud. This was as clear as the shadow you and I cast on a sunny day. It was not thin and wispy and you did not have to struggle to see it in a grainy video clip. It was there and there was no denying it.

The great thing about it was the clearly distinct presence of digits. Notice that I did not say they were fingers and a thumb. At first we thought they were, but upon closer frame-by-frame investigation they looked more like long, bony witch fingers on the end of a claw. At first we thought we were dealing with something human (which you may laugh at, but just wait until I tell you the stories of nonhuman entities in the upcoming chapters), but afterward we were not sure. The arm and “hand” somehow morphed and when it came together it looked like the arm shape-shifted into some weird shape before disappearing.

Thinking that the shadow belonged to a human, we thought we could reason with it and hopefully make intelligent contact, which Daryl tried. I have to give him a lot of credit. He stood his ground and stayed in the kitchen trying to make contact when others would have been too scared to stay. Unfortunately, there was no more contact, so we left baffled by this strange shadow figure.

We assume that this was a shadow, that it was cast by a spirit in between the only light source in the room and the far wall. But if so, then how did Daryl see the shadow and not the spirit casting it? Also, how did Daryl see a shadow from an infrared light source since he can’t see the infrared light spectrum? What you have to remember is that there was no visible light in the room at the time. The shadow was being cast from the infrared light of the camera in the corner, so it’s odd that Daryl saw it happen in real time.

Unless
it was not a shadow?

It’s possible that the arm itself was an apparition that manifested and then disappeared. This is where paranormal investigation (and physics) gets tricky. The arm was solid and black and had all the qualities of a shadow, but it’s also possible that it was something else. It could have been a spirit who only had enough energy to partially manifest and could not show his entire body. The spirit might not have been able to form into a full person, but had enough energy to form an arm for a few brief seconds. This happens frequently, and in fact, it’s rare to see the entire body of an apparition.

It could have also been a residual haunting of a cook preparing a meal in the kitchen back in 1814. Residual hauntings are fascinating paranormal hot spots where history repeats itself over and over again, which this might have been. Residual hauntings usually manifest as sounds, as they do in the Birdcage Theater, so this would be a monumental discovery if we captured a visual residual haunting. Whatever the explanation, this was a shocking piece of paranormal evidence that I probably can’t do justice to in words. It was fantastic and I feel privileged to have been there when it happened.

In the bigger picture, shadows like the ones at Fort Erie and Ashmore Estates are significant because spirits should not have enough mass to cast one. All of our evidence about spirits leads us to believe that they are not solid beings. They should be ethereal and resemble smoke more than they do anything tangible. So how can they cast a shadow? How can they block out light if they are gas like entities? Maybe they are really solid apparitions that are mostly invisible to us, like infrared light is undetectable by the human eye. Maybe ghosts are like paper and our infrared light source is the invisible marker that illuminates them.

I have heard and seen spirits manifest as a human form and block light behind them, but never known one to generate enough mass to cast a shadow from an infrared light until now. This is why investigating the paranormal is addicting and the most thrilling adventure life can offer. The more evidence you discover, the more questions you develop and the more answers you seek.

Mists

Like shadows, mists are one of the most common pieces of evidence in paranormal investigations. However, they’re oftentimes mistaken for being spirits when they’re not and therefore they must be intently scrutinized. Many natural occurrences can be mistaken as an ectoplasm mist—smoke, condensation, evaporation, steam, breath, and light reflection are a few examples (mists are sometimes called ectoplasm mists, which is a generic term for any unknown physical substance attributed to a haunting, but mostly photographic and video evidence of mists and vapors captured during ghost investigations). In my opinion, when paranormal-related mists form, this is a visual representation of the spirit’s composition. It’s also a partial manifestation of the pinnacle of paranormal visual evidence, the full-bodied apparition.

At Houghton Mansion, we took many pictures on each floor with an infrared camera. I like this piece of equipment because it can see in a light spectrum that the human eye cannot, so it’s like having X-ray vision. At the Houghton Mansion it worked like a charm and captured a very compelling picture of a mist that had a semihuman form. Many times mists are amorphous (having no discernable form), but this one did, which got me excited. It had a shoulder and a head and was transparent.

What corroborated the photo was an accompanying temperature drop in the room. The temperature had been holding steady at 76 degrees throughout the evening (our camera had a thermometer on it and recorded the ambient temperature on each picture). But at the exact moment I snapped the photo of the mist, the temperature dropped to 64 degrees—a change of 12 degrees. On the next photo, it returned to normal. It is believed that spirits absorb energy to manifest and when they do this, the temperature drops in their immediate vicinity. This photo and the 12-degree drop in ambient temperature supported that theory.

The mist itself was a great piece of evidence, especially because of its shape, but the addition of a second data point—the temperature drop—made it more credible. Any time you can find a connection between one piece of paranormal evidence and a second piece, it increases the likelihood of the phenomenon being paranormal.

Mists must be debunked as quickly and thoroughly as possible. Taking several photos at once is one technique to ensure you’re not capturing a perfectly natural event. By snapping photos rapidly, you can see the mist form and dissipate in subsequent pictures and therefore discount claims that it was already there or was a camera malfunction. A series of photos will also help you determine the origin of a false mist; for example, a radiator heater in an old house that gives off steam.

One of the best mists we ever captured was at the Linda Vista hospital in Los Angeles. Linda Vista is one of the most active places I’ve investigated and is the definition of creepy. It almost challenges you to come inside and be the same person when you leave.

During the night at Linda Vista, a static night vision camera set at one end of a corridor caught a mist walking down the hallway away from it. It was very clear and happened at nearly the same time we had an encounter with a full-bodied apparition in the same vicinity.

The mist was free floating so it could not have been something attached to or caused by the walls. Using the doors in the hallway as a reference, we determined that the mist was five feet tall and generated its own light in a luminescent haze. Immediately before the mist was captured, Nick saw the apparition of a female patient staring at him and our cameras froze up the same way they do when they receive a sudden surge of EMF. Multiple data points and connected pieces of evidence are the best way to corroborate paranormal activity, and this mist gave us plenty of evidence to work with.

We brought in a video specialist and tried to debunk it as light reflections, but there were no windows on that level of the old hospital. No exterior lights were present and even if there were, nothing was moving. It could not have been a flashlight or we would have seen the shadows of the chairs, cameras, or tripod cast down the hallway. In essence, we ruled out all manmade light sources.

Just like a residual haunting, I feel that the conditions have to be right to capture an ectoplasm mist or a truly paranormal being. The climate, humidity, moon phase, energy source, portals, and any other variable that we don’t understand have to be in place and in the right sequence. It’s like the numbers of a combination lock being in line, and once they are, we get a peek into the world beyond. When spirits have these variables in line and an energy source, they appear and disappear as quickly as a flash of lightning in the desert, so discovering the conditions that allow them to manifest is a huge step toward communicating with them.

It’s one of the reasons paranormal science still involves a lot of guesswork—we still do not fully understand the conditions that need to be present for paranormal activity to occur. Once we do, though, we’ll be able to accurately predict when spirits will appear and might even be able to use that small window to communicate with them. Imagine the things we will learn when that day comes.

The Different Types of Cameras

For most people, seeing is believing. We are visually oriented people and everyone wants to capture proof of the paranormal on film because it’s the most compelling medium. But what cameras should you use and what are the differences?

First off, don’t discount your run-of-the-mill digital camera as not being good enough for an investigation. Simple digital cameras are uncomplicated and many times successful, especially when using its internal flash. Larger SLR digital cameras are sometimes too “smart.” They try to determine light, distance, aperture, f-stop, and other variables and will actually refuse to take a picture if the settings aren’t right. The benefit of these cameras, though, is the ability to take several photos in a second. This is advantageous when a spirit tries to manifest and you need to snap a series of pictures as it happens.

Night vision video cameras are a must because almost all paranormal investigations take place at night and being able to see through the darkness is key to gathering evidence (and is good for safety). Infrared cameras, like the one we used in Houghton Mansion, are great and give fantastic results, but they’re expensive. The highest order of camera for this line of work is the thermal camera, but they’re very expensive and probably aren’t necessary unless you’re a serious investigator.

One of the most common questions I get is why do we investigate at night? My answer is because at night infrared cameras can see in a spectrum that we cannot. Investigations are not only conducted at night because that’s the most likely time period to see ghosts, but because at night we can use our technology to see the other side of the visible light spectrum.

The infrared camera is a great tool. Before snapping the picture of the mist in Houghton Mansion, we took several baseline photos (also called control photos), which are very important because establishing a baseline gives us something to compare an extraordinary photo to. For example, if we think a piece of furniture moved, we can go back to our control photos to see where the item was when we first entered the house and compare them. At Houghton we snapped several pictures of that room, but the mist was only visible in one of them.

Connecting with History

I believe too many people today allow themselves to get caught up in technology and lose their connection to the people and history around them. We get consumed by the present and forget the past that led us up to this point. We tweet, Facebook, text, and make YouTube videos instead of reading and exploring. I think technology and progress is critical to a society, but I also love to leave all of it behind and get connected with the past during an investigation.