Meeting Place of the Dead. Richard Palmisano

me for advice regarding this dilemma. Ultimately, Peter talked me into agreeing that he should proceed with data-collecting experimentation, but he was to avoid the barn completely and to limit his visits to the cottage. Even then, Peter was to spend as little time alone inside as possible.

      After great deliberation I gave authorization to proceed, albeit with caution. Peter immediately set to work on a plan of action. What follows are Peter’s reports from his solo investigation.

      Visit #1 — January 8

      Arriving at the cottage before 8:00 p.m., I entered the silent building with my digital voice recorder already running and the E. Probe 1.0 pre-set at a high sensitivity detection level.

      Since I was no longer a stranger to the spirits of the house, I thought I’d try to shake up their expectations a little by simply entering the cottage, offering the alarm device someone seemed to have a fondness for, then leaving without verbally acknowledging them or sharing my intent — a radical departure from normal Searcher Group procedure that “they” were no doubt becoming accustomed to.

      Leaving the recorder on a chair in the dining room and the E. Probe 1.0 armed atop a drafting table far across the adjacent studio room, I locked the door behind me and drove away.

      Returning two-and-a-half hours later, I couldn’t help but grin widely as I emerged from my car. The alarm of the E. Probe could be heard blaring from inside the house, as it had done during previous investigations. Pleased with my success, I worked quickly, re-entering the house, deactivating the E. Probe, collecting the recorder, and moving toward the exit; again, without a word spoken.

      As I stepped across the threshold of the cottage, I suddenly experienced an abrupt pressure change in my right ear — the most unpleasant kind of deafening, popping sensation one feels when travelling at high altitudes by airplane. I half-wondered if I had just been poked or punched by someone unseen as I locked the door behind me and returned to the safety of the car. The entire procedure took less than three minutes.

      Turning the ignition, I broke my silence to tell the empty air that if I was being joined by a resident spirit at that moment, they were to remain behind and not follow me home. I also noted that for the first time since beginning investigation of the property, I could smell traces of the air freshener scent from the interior of the cottage inside the car. This familiar odour lingered for about a minute as I drove away, dissipating completely as I passed the local cemetery.

      The perceived success of the night’s experiment was short-lived as I began analyzing the audio data. Seven minutes and fifty-one seconds after I had left the cottage, the E. Probe 1.0 began alarming and — unfortunately — remained alarmed for the rest of the recording. Instead of a successful ghostly interaction, it seemed that the device had simply malfunctioned and its incessantly-loud blare drowned out any possible EVPs that may have occurred.

      Visit #2 — January 10

      I rarely drive anywhere listening to music or the radio. So it was on this evening that minutes after leaving home, I began hearing the ear-splitting E. Probe 1.0 alarm in my head. Glancing down at the device lying quietly on the passenger seat beside me, I noted the “ghost” of the alarm sound resonating in my inner ears lasted fifteen to twenty seconds before giving way to the normal ambiance of evening traffic outside the car.

      I can honestly say I had not heard the pure alarm sound of the device for more than twenty-four hours before this spontaneous, ear-ringing phenomenon and I haven’t heard a similar ear-ringing since. The irony that this occurred on my way to the second solo data-collecting experiment was not lost on me.

      Deciding to once again remain silent after entering the cottage, I placed the digital recorder inside the alcove at the base of the staircase to the second floor, the microphone pointed into the open studio beyond. Dropping the sensitivity of the E. Probe 1.0 to a lower setting* than the previous visit, I placed the device on the seat of the wicker chair in the northwest room, confirmed the recorder was operating properly, and exited the house silently, without incident.

      [*In order to activate the alarm of the E. Probe 1.0 at this setting, a source of electrical energy would need to approach within 3 millimetres of the device’s aerial.]

      Two hours and forty minutes later, I returned to the cottage to retrieve the equipment and was not smiling when I stepped from the car to hear the alarm blaring from inside the building again. Praying this evening’s recording would reveal this alarm was actually one of several, I quickly collected the equipment and exited the cottage.

      While I consider it a victory whenever the alarm is activated by an unseen force, unfortunately, once activated (this time, nine minutes and forty-seven seconds after my departure), the alarm remained on for the duration of this recording, as well.

      Looking on the positive side, at the very least I was slowly determining the increments of the device’s ideal sensitivity setting. Still, it came at the cost of potential EVP loss, so a new tack was definitely in order.

      I learned something else that evening, as well. Wearing the same clothes I wore during the first night and spending the identical amount of time inside the cottage both times this evening, I could not detect the air freshener scent inside my car after exiting.

      Visit #3 — January 12–13

      On my way out of town for another investigation, I stopped by the cottage at 3:00 p.m. to introduce the next component of my experiments — a pair of powder traps.

      Ensuring the surface of my target areas was as close to flat as possible, I secured flattened garbage bags to the floor of the mid-way staircase landing with tape before sprinkling a generous amount of flour, covering the entire area in a half-inch blanket of solid whiteness from corner-to-corner. Stepping over the staircase trap, I repeated this process on garbage bags taped flat to the linoleum floor just inside the entrance to the second-floor bathroom — another location of intense paranormal activity. I remained silent the whole time I worked.

      Taking several control photos of both traps, I exited the cottage and continued on my way.

      Hours later, a thick fog greeted me as I returned to the property at 1:00 a.m., setting the scene for a perfect Hollywood horror event. Though no figures emerged, arms outstretched, from the walls of the fog, I was sufficiently creeped out by the ambience to make this visit a quick one.

      Checking the powder traps for signs of footprints or powder disturbance, I noted with some disappointment there was no change in either. Accompanying my digital recorder this time was my E. Probe 2.0 alarm device — an upgrade model with a pre-set sensitivity and a much quieter alarm. Both were placed apart from each other and activated on the main floor before I exited the cottage.

      I returned twelve hours later to retrieve the equipment, by the warm light of the sun. The powder traps were clean, the E. Probe 2.0 was still armed and the digital recorder had stopped itself, as the memory card was full, containing almost nine hours of audio data.

      Review of the recording revealed a few noteworthy elements. Unbeknownst to me, a heavy rainfall occurred during the wee hours of the morning and it was during this tempest that the recorder picked up what sounded like hard, pounding footfalls stomping back and forth between the recorder on the main floor and the farthest reaches of the second-storey, on multiple occasions. When the intensity of the downpour weakened, the pounding ceased; if the rain began to intensify, the running thumps would resume in uneven patterns.

      Recalling the theory that electricity produced by falling water may “feed” spirits with energy enough to manifest detectable activity, could this heavy rainfall have acted as a catalyst for what was recorded?

      Subsequent questioning of the homeowner revealed that while the building does not have a sump pump installed, there is a water pump connected with the unused well, located just out back of the cottage. Though the first conclusion to jump to is the sound of the water pump being activated by the excessive downpour, it does not explain the random growing and fading intensities of the pounding toward and away from the recorder; that and the fact that not even the homeowner had heard such intense pounding while working inside the cottage on rainy days.

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