Mrs. Hendricks Farm – pt. 1

Hello dear readers.

My mum is still on a decluttering frenzy and we spent every free hour of last week going through papers, books and other rubbish my dad left behind. I had to hurry my search for his journals, afraid she would throw them away.

I am very pleased to have found a certain journal I've been looking for.
I remember my dad telling me this story, it was always interesting but as I read his diary I found out how deep an impact it had on all involved, including my father.
In his diary he writes about learning to cope with the weight of your decisions and the effect they might have on someone else's life that is out of your control.

Here's what he wrote, and again, I edited slightly to make it easier to read. It's a long read, so I'll post it in two parts. No surprise there :-)

"It's almost spring now. We've been through another cold week, winter's last breath before the warmth arrives. Had a busy season with investigations, plus there was a new collection to catalogue at work that kept me off the field for a couple of weeks.
Received a phone call from Mrs Hendricks, she sounded quite desperate. She's been trying to reach me for months, I apologised for missing all of her calls and blamed on work, I didn't have the heart to tell her I didn't want to have an investigation on a farm in the middle of winter. To my surprise, their haunting problem was still going on. I agreed to spend a long weekend over at theirs next week and was puzzled at her reaction when I sent my regards to her husband, Harold. She simply grunted and said she would be expecting me the following week."

"This is my first night at Mrs Hendricks' farm. I arrived shortly after lunch, she offered me some food, but I had stopped on the road to eat at a roadside restaurant. I got a strange feeling as I got there and her attitude to me did not help dissuade that idea. My heart sunk as I asked her about Harold, and she bluntly turned around and said he was dead. I did not know what to say and whatever I said would not change the feeling in my heart that I had something to do with their current predicament.
She showed me to my room and I settled my things and started to set up my equipment. I asked Mrs Hendricks to have a chat about all that had happened after a few sentences I could tell they had a poltergeist, an entity that wanted to cause trouble and wreak havoc in their lives. What can I say? It was doing a great job. Harold could not just leave it alone and refrain from visiting the farm, he wanted answers and he wanted peace to enjoy his property. After a few close encounters he suffered a heart attack and did not recover from it. I feel somewhat responsible for his fate as I refused to investigate their problem. I know of persistent entities and even of cases where you can feel the fear in the air as the entity projects their hate, like in that hotel in Cornwall, but I never heard of an entity scaring someone so bad their heart stops.
Well, on with work. I started to gather baseline readings throughout the place and the outside, which according to her there was always something going on. I recorded the drop on temperature for this night, hoping that will tell me something tomorrow, as I got quite a lot of blurs and strange dots on my photographs and my reading got a couple of spikes throughout the night. It is very late and morning approaches, I am going to bed. More work tomorrow."

"Second night. Temperature readings outside being different at every couple of meters and twice more spikes on my reader convinced me this spot was popular. I heard noises but that’s hard to differentiate from the animals and insects around me, so I paid no attention to them. I decided to try and contact the entity and was received badly, with something suddenly moving nearby, a piece of branch by the sound of it. I stayed quiet for a minute and tried again. Nothing. I would feel this sudden sensation someone just pushed me, but there was nothing but air. This happened thrice in a very short time, which made me feel very silly and defenseless. I did not want to upset the entity any further by trying to fight it, that's not why I'm here. I changed positions slightly in an attempt to understand the reason behind the supposed attack. I soon realised one specific location was not the problem, this lost soul did not want me out here. On a first instinct I started to look around the area surrounding the house, trying to find clues to such an intense presence. The more I looked the more I got shivers, whispers and things moving around me. There was someone around, all my instruments proved that beyond all I could feel, but every time I try and establish contact I would either get nothing or just something moving, sometimes in my direction.
Tomorrow I'll have to rethink my approach to this investigation."

OK, that's it for part 1. I'll type and post the second part on Monday.
Did anyone spot the Jamaica Inn mention?

Miles.

So little time...

Hello dear readers,

These last week has been busy but nothing too exciting, first I've helped a friend move houses, from a second floor flat in one place to a fifth floor flat somewhere else, all in East London. The funny part was the broken lift on the new place, which meant a lot of trips carrying boxes up the stairs. Good thing I'm young, only 30 :-)

After a couple of days rest from that but still at work, my mother asked me to help her clear some stuff my dad had lying around in the spare bedroom and his office. It was a lot of stuff, mostly papers and books and pictures. It took us a couple of days to go through it all, which inspired me to find some more old journals from my dad. I'm still looking through them to find some interesting stories to post. Haven't found the one I really want, which was briefly mentioned on a blog in January, Mrs. Hendricks' farm investigation. I'd find it and post it soon.

Sorry for no juicy stories this week. An investigator I know commented on my luck in finding activity during my investigations, which I admit, I get lucky, but it also helps that I have a certain state of mind to approach the investigations to ease the energy going around and facilitate the contact with whoever is there. It's part of what my granddad and my dad have taught me over the years.

So, looking forward to some juicy stories for next week.

Until then, take care everyone and thank you all yet again for the great comments and messages I get every time I post something. Thank you.

Love,

Miles.

Comeback

Hello dear readers.

It seems my Church investigation has started something of a comeback tour.
I got a call from the Midlands' priest, first thanking me for the result of my work, then mentioning a friend with a similar problem of sorts.
As my burger flipping life doesn't afford long breaks from work, the good priest got his friend to pay me for my services. I feel bad charging, but if it's the only way to accomplish that, so be it.

So, off to the Midlands once again, and once again I can't say where exactly. This time I was going to a different kind of temple, a cinema.
Apparently patrons and staff have seen a couple of apparitions in two of their auditoriums. The place is an old classic theatre turned one big cinema screen turned 4 screens multiplex. I had a long chat with the owner, where I got a lot of details but asked him not to tell me which screens were the haunted ones. I then visited all auditoriums to set baseline readings for the whole place and immediately could see on my tri-meter that two rooms had some big electromagnetic pull. I had a few nights, so I decided to do a thorough investigation.
First night I stayed on one of the more active screen and set my camera in one of the supposed calm ones. I heard noises, felt sudden cold drafts and picked up some sound disturbances on my EVP recorder. By morning I had one positively identified room. The camera picked up nothing unusual, so I discarded that room.
Second night I set up the camera on the same room I was the night before, screen 3, while I stayed on another supposed problematic one, screen 4. I had a quiet night, registering only a few disturbances on the tri-meter and a few changes of temperatures that seemed out of the ordinary. By morning I checked the camera recordings and was not surprised to see a ceiling light swinging around a couple of times during the night. According to the time, it was around the same time I picked up EVP sounds the night before. My investigation in that room was complete, all I had left was to figure it out who or what was doing it all.
Third night was a busy night for the cinema and there were complaints of voices during the film, but strangely enough no one admitted to talking. Guess which screen that was? There were also more people losing things in the screen, mostly hats, which the owner told me about had been happening for a while. The staff was investigated but nothing was found. We picked up some lost property found in other screens and left scattered in the room for the night. I set up my camera in that room, tempted by the idea of capturing some escaping clothing. I spent the night on the same screen as the previous night, as it was the day it usually recorded more activity, according to the info I was given. Patrons had not seen anything strange, but I found strange that most people left the screen with the same bored and sleepy expressions, which I found odd since they were watching a high paced action film. Maybe it was just a shit movie, but something seemed wrong. Not more than an hour in the room and I started to fell the same, some weight put on me that seemed to take away my energy. I had to get up and pace the room not to fall asleep. This time around I heard footsteps from the back rows and could swear I heard whispers. Busy night.
In the morning I curiously checked the lost property and it was all gone. I was the first in the screen and the place was unusually cold. I went through the video recordings and could not see anything, but picked up what seemed to be orbs appearing a few times on a corner of the image/room. I checked the location and it was the air conditioning vent, coming down from the ceiling. When the owner arrived I asked him to double check inside the vent and on the vertical one we saw nothing, but there was a smell of burning clothes, similar to when you just ironed a jumper. As the air came from the vents high in the ceiling, the owner picked up his ladder and to our surprise we found about two dozens of hats and scarves scattered across the air vent at the ceiling. He was positively freaked out and I had to hide my amusement at seeing him lose it a bit. It's understandable when one's not used to dealing with these situations. As nothing as unusual was happening on the other screens I set up camp on this one, armed with all I brought with me, to try and contact this entity and hopefully capture on video.

It didn’t take long for the entity to announce itself to me, by making noises rattling seats. I kept my cool and started to talk to it, trying to establish its intentions. That didn’t take long either, with a hat I left somewhere in the room flying towards me. I was startled a bit by that one, but happy to have captured it on camera, I’ll post that video on YouTube someday. I then announced my intentions to clear this building of all negative activity, asking it to go away peacefully or to be forced out by me. More rattling of seats and another hat flying the room. Both of us seemed to know what we were doing, as I prepared some of my items to scare it off I was presented by an apparition, right in front of me. That certainly made me jump and left me with a taste of revenge against this poltergeist. I believe it felt my anger as things started to fly around again. I took my Holy Water spray gun and I think it felt how serious I was about this. It appeared in front of me again and it wasn’t happy. Another hat hit me in the face, but none of that stopped me from spraying Holy Water all over the seats. The more I did, more noise and rattling happened. It all stopped once I got to the back row. The only place left to spray was the small stage in front of the screen. As I approached it I heard a crying, sort of a wailing noise. I sprayed the stage and around the screen and immediately felt lighter, as if I’ve been holding my breath all this time. I moved to the other screens and without any interruption or resistance I sprayed the rest of the building. In the morning the manager asked me where the water comes from and he was happy to know it came from our mutual friend, the priest who got me this investigation. We came to the conclusion that the entity was once a theatre person who didn’t want to leave this place and was upset that the theatre gave way to the four screens.
I was well tired after these last few nights, but also very happy to be back to my real work.
Until my next job I’ll have to go back to flipping burgers, waiting for another haunting to get out of hand so I can be summoned again. I feel like a Paranormal Indiana Jones, minus the hat.

Till next week, hopefully.

Love,

Miles.

The Church Investigation - Part II

Here I am again and as promised, here follows the rest of last week's story.

The church investigation.

For my third and last full night at the location, I decided to bring some sea salt and I also decided to try a technique I read from Ted Thornby, burning herbs. The noises on my EVP and the drastic sudden change in temperature in one room was the reason for me to come prepared for a fight.
I set up my camera in one corner of the room, my EVP recorder in another corner and positioned myself in the middle of the room. I was not getting too much activity, then I remember the priest said people who experienced episodes were in deep prayer. Luckily I have my mother's praying book in my pack. I took it out and did something I haven't done in years, praying. As soon as I finished my first Our Father I felt that same cold air coming and going. I stopped my praying and the room went back to normal. I moved on to Hail Mary and this time I felt a big cold shiver down my spine. Clearly something here was not a big fan of prayers. The word Poltergeist came to mind. I checked my readings and everything was out of the ordinary. I got up, continued praying until something fell from the priest's desk. I was convinced. The proof was there, now it was time to convince this entity to go away. I spoke in a normal voice, addressing it to leave the building so people can pray and worship their God in peace. Nothing happened. I then repeated the same request, this time around in the form of a prayer. Something else hit the floor. The cold air in the room was palpable now. I tried a few more techniques to get this entity to go away peacefully. Nothing seemed to work. So I took the sea salt from my pack, placed at the base of one door and opened the other door and asked the entity to leave. There was a certain stillness to the air in the room. I asked it again, while walking towards the open door. I went down on my knees under the frame of the open door, placed a cup by one corner and started to spread the salt from the other corner of the door frame, in the direction of the cup. Before I hit the halfway mark I felt again that cold shiver, the cup was hit and flew away as I finished with spreading the salt. I repeated the ritual all over the church, making sure I left an open door for it to leave. By the time I closed the main entrance with the salt on the floor all my readings were different. Since I brought Ted's herbs I decided to give it a go and I walked around the place, much like altar boys do following the priest. I don't know if they do on this church, I have no idea of the differences in between churches.

Before I left I instructed the priest to record the temperatures in the building for the next three evenings and let me know if there is any weird happenings.

So, a lucky turn on my first investigation of 2010 and the first I've done for months.

It's good to be back.

Until next week, dear friends.

Miles.