Top bid gets ghost hunters into home
By JOSEPH DEINLEIN
HARSENS ISLAND -- Melody Morris said she felt like someone had run an ice cube down her back.
"It really felt like an ice cube, it felt wet," Morris of Island Lake, Ill., said. "After about 10 more seconds, I couldn't stand being up there anymore."
After running from the bedroom at the top of the stairs, Morris, a medium (or psychic), and other members of the Michiana Ghost Society discovered a long scratch mark running from the base of her neck to the small of her back. Several smaller scratches were below it, near her waist.
Upstairs, in the house at 177 Williams St., Morris had been wearing a T-shirt and thick winter jacket. She said the scratches weren't there before this past weekend, when a crew of nine members from the ghost society spent the night at the house to investigate reports of hauntings.
The society, based near South Bend, Ind., has been involved with numerous paranormal investigations across the Midwest.
The weekend of Jan. 29 and 30 was the second of three the society is spending at the island house after winning an eBay auction posted by the home's owner, Bob Kowalski, who rents out the house. When Kowalski and his family lived there, they said they would wake up with feelings of dread, and they had other strange experiences.
Society president Andy Pearson of Osceola, Ind., said the group uses hi-tech photography, video and audio, plus research and personal experiences, in its quest to capture proof of ghosts and spirits.
Being a ghostbuster
Group member Jimi Lewis, 33, a truck driver from Mishawaka, Ind., said he hunts ghosts in hopes he's there when proof of their existence is captured.
"I want to be like Bill Murray, laying on the floor covered with slime," he said, referencing the movie Ghostbusters. "I want proof that there is something on the other side. I want to know what death brings."
Based on the group's findings, Pearson said the nondescript home is out of the ordinary.
"He's got something," Pearson said of Kowalski's home. "I don't know what, just yet."
In its hunt for spirits, the Michiana Ghost Society uses digital and film photography, as well as audio and video equipment. Mike Lawson, 53, a car salesman from Niles, and a group member, said the technology often can record things the naked eye or ear cannot.
That includes things such as mists, voices and orbs.
"An orb is a ball of energy," Lawson said. "It's the simplest form (a spirit) can take."
During its stay in the house, the society caught many orbs on camera and video. Minutes after the orbs were shot, Pearson used a laptop computer to pull up digital camera images. He said while many orbs can be explained away as lens flare or other camera defects, some can't be explained.
He used a picture he took of Morris as an example.
While members were in a room called the "choke room," so named because Kowalksi would wake up there feeling as though he was being choked, Morris told Pearson to snap a shot above her hand. The photograph later showed a small white shape -- similar to the look of an out-of-focus snowflake -- above Morris's clenched fist.
Pearson also said he recorded at least three of what are known as EVPs, or electronic voice phenomena. Investigators placed tape recorders throughout the house, then played them back later, listening for odd sounds or voices.
In one such incident, Morris and Pearson were called from the choke room to an upstairs bedroom, and the phrase "Don't want you to go" can be heard faintly on the tape recording in the room, Pearson said.
Calling on powers
Sometimes the ghost-hunting equipment isn't so high-tech.
Lewis and psychic Michelle McGuire, 37, of Osceola used dowsing rods -- also called "spirit sticks" -- to contact spirits present in the same upstairs bedroom where Morris said she was scratched.
The solid-copper rods are L-shaped, and Lewis covered the smaller part of the "L" with plastic straws. "I want to limit as much human contact as possible," he said.
He held the rods in front of him perpendicular to his body, and then he or McGuire would ask questions such as, "Are there any good spirits in this room?" For a positive answer, Lewis told the spirit to cross the sticks. For a negative answer, the spirits were instructed to push the sticks apart.
Using intuition, McGuire began asking questions and the sticks began moving. From this, McGuire said there were three spirits in the room. One was named Isabella, who did not live or die in the house but worked for the people who owned it.
Another they claimed to have contacted was a 4-year-old boy named Timmy, who was hit by a car while riding his bike in front of the house. McGuire said she couldn't get the name of the third spirit, but believes it was Timmy's uncle. He supposedly was driving the car that hit him.
Pearson said he and McGuire plan to spend some time this weekend at the main branch of the St. Clair County Library System in Port Huron, looking for newspaper clippings or other evidence to back up what McGuire felt.
Finding an answer
Because of the massive amount of photographs, audio and videotapes made during the late January visit, Pearson said it has taken the team the better part of a week to go through the evidence. Some of the group was to return again this weekend for a follow-up. Some group members did a preliminary investigation Jan. 15 and 16.
"It's got restless spirits," McGuire said of the Harsens Island site. "But I'm not sure if haunted is the right word."
ONLINE
MICHIANA GHOST SOCIETY
#
www.michianaghostsociety.org offers details about the society's previous investigations and other paranormal-related information.
TOOLS OF THE TRADE
ITEMS USED IN INVESTIGATION
# 6 rolls of film.
# 697 digital photos.
# 4 audio tapes.
# 9 video tapes.
ON THE RECORD
EXCERPTS FROM NOTES RECORDED AT 177 WILLIAMS ST. BY THE MICHIANA GHOST SOCIETY ON JAN. 29 AND 30.
# 4 p.m.: Melody Morris has scratches on her back after being upstairs.
# 5:43 p.m.: Orb spotted on the TV.
# 6:43 p.m.: Orb seen in attic.
# 7:01 p.m.: Temperature change recorded in attic.
# 7:12 p.m.: Something touches Lewis' ear.
# 7:12 p.m.: Orb seen shooting through the floor.
# 7:12 p.m.: Cracking and popping noises heard in upper attic.
# 8:50 p.m.: Temperature drop recorded.
# 9:52 p.m.: 2 orbs spotted on stairway.
# 12:04 a.m.: Camcorder shuts down.
# 12:40 a.m.: Lots of orbs seen in attic bedroom.
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Originally published Sunday, February 6, 2005
