(no subject)
Rather than piecemeal give you info on the ghost hunt via Facebook, I thought I would do one major update via Livejournal and you can read as you like. I tried to update FB as we went along but the blackberry photos were not being cooperative!
For those who are looking for a quick fix of ghosty evidence, the closest we have is a video of weird reflections which may or may not have come from a large flag, in the windows of the house, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0VlsTkQs_0
You can see allllll of my photos from the day, including our Poulsbo adventure, in the LW gallery, here: http://www.littlewyng.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4571
OK, now, moving on.
Quick background for those just tuning in. Seattle actually offers classes in paranormal investigation. I couldn't POSSIBLY not take this class, and as it turned out, Lisa was interested as well! And she also brought along Gail, her boyfriend's mom, who is also a very cool lady. We have been taking these classes for the past two Saturdays, and the final class was a real ghost investigation, in the Walker-Ames house in Port Gamble, WA.
We decided that the best way to get a full ghost hunting day in was to leave early from Lisa's house, jump the Bainbridge ferry and then explore Poulsbo in addition to just Port Gamble, where we were scheduled to meet with our class at 5:30. We had been told that the museum and theater were also haunted, as well as the cemetery, and so it would be a great idea to just explore everything.
So I arrived at Lisa's house at 8ish, and was dismayed to find out that she had been burned on the stove the night before and in fact had not slept for the entire night. Eek. She bravely set off anyway, living all day on adrenaline alone! Gail arrived shortly after I did, and we trekked into the city to take the ferry. Luckily, there was coffee on board.
We arrived at Bainbridge, and began driving, really happy that it was an incredibly sunny day. We did see one of the casinos that Lisa works on, so that was cool.
Poulsbo was this quaint little town with shops, very Norwegian, and we began walking around. We found a beer store and a boat store so Lisa and I were both happy. There were some great antique stores and I managed to find a pirate shirt. Also got to see the waterfront, lots of boats. We did quite a bit of exploring and shopping, and then it was time to move along, since we were beginning to starve.
We were *cough* slightly lost getting to Port Gamble, but nothing we couldn't handle. The town was like driving through a combination of a little new england town and that weird super neat town in Big Fish... it was like everyone had rulers out to make sure the grass was all the same height, and the houses were insanely preserved. Very old! There was more than one haunted house in that town, I'd wager.
The town used to be an old mill town, and so the remains of the mill were still on the waterfront, with the town behind it. After a quick loop around town, we decided first to check out the General Store, which had reopened after a long period of being closed up. It had a lot of gifty stuff and candy and things... and upstairs was the Sea and Shore Museum- a lot of shells and sea life and things. We ventured on to the most important thing of all- LUNCH. First we tried what appeared to be the only restaurant in town, a tea house- but the pickings were slim and it wasn't really the sustenance we thought we needed for a massive ghost hunt. So instead we wandered around town, intending to head back toward Poulsbo, when we found Mike's 4 Star BBQ. Sold.
Post-lunch, we continued our perusal of Port Gamble, and visited the most eclectic bookstore ever, the sea and shore museum, and the historical museum. We also spent quite a bit of time in the cemetery, where there were a number of very young folks and children that were buried there- later we found out 115 people. At long last, after a visit to the post office/haunted theater, our group gathered and we began the HUNT!
Basically the deal was that we had to be locked in the house for 3 hours. There were 16 of us, and 5 to a group... 4 floors in the house, no electricity and no plumbing. 30 minutes on each floor.
First stop for Lisa, Gail and I along with our new teammates, Kevin and Jennifer, was the attic. What we learned later was that there was presumably a ghost called the "Lavender Lady" who was sometimes seen looking out the windows. The thinking is that she is a governess/nanny, and there are also two children they think up there. What did we see? Nothing. Just dark. There was a corner of the room that everyone kind of shied away from, and later we were told that that corner for whatever reason tends to make people sad or start crying for no reason. Also there was furniture that had moved on its own. There was also in the one room a bare lightbulb, and the story is that the property owner would occasionally have to go out to the house and turn the light off, as there was not, as noted, working electricity in the house.
Post-attic we went down a floor to the 2nd, where we really wanted to check out the 'yellow room,' which is where the windows were that we had seen the weird reflection in earlier. We definitely got a more stressed out feeling in that room than in the others- I know it sounds crazy, but we did. Kevin and Jennifer had a video camera with night vision- Jennifer thought she had seen something blue in the closet and got the impression that it might be a little boy... so they had the camera trained on the closet. About 10 minutes in, we jumped because the camera was beeping- guess what? Batteries were drained. We all looked at each other and then Kevin came back in to check since he had been exploring and had heard it. He turned the camera back on and found that the battery was at 75%. Creeeeeepy. Shortly thereafter, Lisa was trying to catch things on her camera, and the batteries died. Later on in the house? No issue with the batteries. After the appointed 30 minutes, we were off to the 1st floor.
Gail and I found a space below the stairs, Harry Potter style, and were trying to figure out if anything were in there- no dice, although the instructor said there was a lot of rat poison, so be warned. Then we explored the kitchen and pantry for a while, but nothing weird, just a lot of speculation about where things would have been placed, oven and refrigerator and the like. It was really reminding me both of Marsh Road and my old apartment on Park Ave., with the old style everything. Nothing mysterious on the 1st floor other than a really cold room- then on to the dark, dark basement.
The basement was the creepiest of all, even given the weird 2nd floor stuff. There was a step stool in the basement that in the beginning the instructor had told us not to move please. When we were down there, he told us that the group before us had experienced something... they were trying to use the electromangetometer thing near the stool, and it started shaking- two of them saw/heard it. So what did that mean? Yep, we stared at the stool for half an hour. Gail had given me a compass to use, and I tried putting it on the stool but it didn't do anything. The camera that Kevin & Jennifer had was trained on it as well but no dice. Later we learned that there was an angry guy in the basement that didn't like women- we were disappointed not to know this at the time because we would have messed with him.
After all the floors we reconvened and shared what we had learned. The one lady who ALWAYS experienced things in our class of course had seen a woman, unfortunately she also let it slip that the woman was wearing garb from the early 1800s, which #1) proved that she wasn't paying attention in class and #2) proved that she wasn't paying attention to the Port Gamble history, as the town was founded in 1853 and the house wasn't even built until 1888. Oops.
We had a brief mothman experience as the road we were initially trying to find INTO Port Gamble magically appeared on our way out, and we did make the next ferry back to Seattle.
All in all, a very interesting night, if a little unsuccessful as ghost hunting goes.
For those who are looking for a quick fix of ghosty evidence, the closest we have is a video of weird reflections which may or may not have come from a large flag, in the windows of the house, here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0VlsTkQs_0
You can see allllll of my photos from the day, including our Poulsbo adventure, in the LW gallery, here: http://www.littlewyng.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=4571
OK, now, moving on.
Quick background for those just tuning in. Seattle actually offers classes in paranormal investigation. I couldn't POSSIBLY not take this class, and as it turned out, Lisa was interested as well! And she also brought along Gail, her boyfriend's mom, who is also a very cool lady. We have been taking these classes for the past two Saturdays, and the final class was a real ghost investigation, in the Walker-Ames house in Port Gamble, WA.
We decided that the best way to get a full ghost hunting day in was to leave early from Lisa's house, jump the Bainbridge ferry and then explore Poulsbo in addition to just Port Gamble, where we were scheduled to meet with our class at 5:30. We had been told that the museum and theater were also haunted, as well as the cemetery, and so it would be a great idea to just explore everything.
So I arrived at Lisa's house at 8ish, and was dismayed to find out that she had been burned on the stove the night before and in fact had not slept for the entire night. Eek. She bravely set off anyway, living all day on adrenaline alone! Gail arrived shortly after I did, and we trekked into the city to take the ferry. Luckily, there was coffee on board.
We arrived at Bainbridge, and began driving, really happy that it was an incredibly sunny day. We did see one of the casinos that Lisa works on, so that was cool.
Poulsbo was this quaint little town with shops, very Norwegian, and we began walking around. We found a beer store and a boat store so Lisa and I were both happy. There were some great antique stores and I managed to find a pirate shirt. Also got to see the waterfront, lots of boats. We did quite a bit of exploring and shopping, and then it was time to move along, since we were beginning to starve.
We were *cough* slightly lost getting to Port Gamble, but nothing we couldn't handle. The town was like driving through a combination of a little new england town and that weird super neat town in Big Fish... it was like everyone had rulers out to make sure the grass was all the same height, and the houses were insanely preserved. Very old! There was more than one haunted house in that town, I'd wager.
The town used to be an old mill town, and so the remains of the mill were still on the waterfront, with the town behind it. After a quick loop around town, we decided first to check out the General Store, which had reopened after a long period of being closed up. It had a lot of gifty stuff and candy and things... and upstairs was the Sea and Shore Museum- a lot of shells and sea life and things. We ventured on to the most important thing of all- LUNCH. First we tried what appeared to be the only restaurant in town, a tea house- but the pickings were slim and it wasn't really the sustenance we thought we needed for a massive ghost hunt. So instead we wandered around town, intending to head back toward Poulsbo, when we found Mike's 4 Star BBQ. Sold.
Post-lunch, we continued our perusal of Port Gamble, and visited the most eclectic bookstore ever, the sea and shore museum, and the historical museum. We also spent quite a bit of time in the cemetery, where there were a number of very young folks and children that were buried there- later we found out 115 people. At long last, after a visit to the post office/haunted theater, our group gathered and we began the HUNT!
Basically the deal was that we had to be locked in the house for 3 hours. There were 16 of us, and 5 to a group... 4 floors in the house, no electricity and no plumbing. 30 minutes on each floor.
First stop for Lisa, Gail and I along with our new teammates, Kevin and Jennifer, was the attic. What we learned later was that there was presumably a ghost called the "Lavender Lady" who was sometimes seen looking out the windows. The thinking is that she is a governess/nanny, and there are also two children they think up there. What did we see? Nothing. Just dark. There was a corner of the room that everyone kind of shied away from, and later we were told that that corner for whatever reason tends to make people sad or start crying for no reason. Also there was furniture that had moved on its own. There was also in the one room a bare lightbulb, and the story is that the property owner would occasionally have to go out to the house and turn the light off, as there was not, as noted, working electricity in the house.
Post-attic we went down a floor to the 2nd, where we really wanted to check out the 'yellow room,' which is where the windows were that we had seen the weird reflection in earlier. We definitely got a more stressed out feeling in that room than in the others- I know it sounds crazy, but we did. Kevin and Jennifer had a video camera with night vision- Jennifer thought she had seen something blue in the closet and got the impression that it might be a little boy... so they had the camera trained on the closet. About 10 minutes in, we jumped because the camera was beeping- guess what? Batteries were drained. We all looked at each other and then Kevin came back in to check since he had been exploring and had heard it. He turned the camera back on and found that the battery was at 75%. Creeeeeepy. Shortly thereafter, Lisa was trying to catch things on her camera, and the batteries died. Later on in the house? No issue with the batteries. After the appointed 30 minutes, we were off to the 1st floor.
Gail and I found a space below the stairs, Harry Potter style, and were trying to figure out if anything were in there- no dice, although the instructor said there was a lot of rat poison, so be warned. Then we explored the kitchen and pantry for a while, but nothing weird, just a lot of speculation about where things would have been placed, oven and refrigerator and the like. It was really reminding me both of Marsh Road and my old apartment on Park Ave., with the old style everything. Nothing mysterious on the 1st floor other than a really cold room- then on to the dark, dark basement.
The basement was the creepiest of all, even given the weird 2nd floor stuff. There was a step stool in the basement that in the beginning the instructor had told us not to move please. When we were down there, he told us that the group before us had experienced something... they were trying to use the electromangetometer thing near the stool, and it started shaking- two of them saw/heard it. So what did that mean? Yep, we stared at the stool for half an hour. Gail had given me a compass to use, and I tried putting it on the stool but it didn't do anything. The camera that Kevin & Jennifer had was trained on it as well but no dice. Later we learned that there was an angry guy in the basement that didn't like women- we were disappointed not to know this at the time because we would have messed with him.
After all the floors we reconvened and shared what we had learned. The one lady who ALWAYS experienced things in our class of course had seen a woman, unfortunately she also let it slip that the woman was wearing garb from the early 1800s, which #1) proved that she wasn't paying attention in class and #2) proved that she wasn't paying attention to the Port Gamble history, as the town was founded in 1853 and the house wasn't even built until 1888. Oops.
We had a brief mothman experience as the road we were initially trying to find INTO Port Gamble magically appeared on our way out, and we did make the next ferry back to Seattle.
All in all, a very interesting night, if a little unsuccessful as ghost hunting goes.