Ghost hunter's Diary

A few of you know that I've been ghost hunting for far longer than I'd like to admit to. While rumaging around for a story outline today in my files, I found some articles that were published while with my ghost hunting group in Washington, D.C. years ago. I thought it would be fun to share what a bit of this investigation was like:

XXX House, Maryland 2003

I went on an investigation last month to a house that my group had been to previously. I had heard the stories of full-body apparitions, whispers and hot spots and now wanted to see what all the fuss was about. The night was perfect, an electrical storm had been brewing for days making the air crackle and the night sweaty. The house was a stone's throw away from a marsh in the Chesapeake, the smell of rotting vegetation adding to the ambience. If there were spirits to be found, how could they resist?

Lights flashed in this house. The owners blamed it on the spirit of a woman murdered there over a year ago in their basement bedroom. They showed me where they had replaced the bloody carpeting next to their bed and I had to quell my imagination from seeing faces stare back at me in their mirrored closet doors. We set up infra-red cameras in the hallway, where the owner had encountered her several times and waited. We interviewed the family again. And waited. A bulb in the kitchen track lighting flashed off and on, the other six in the track remained steadfastly bright as I grilled the owner about faulty wiring. And we waited.

At first, a few members of the investigative group, including myself, had felt something in the house. Some felt a tickle on their skin; it skimmed and played with our senses until we almost scratched ourselves to get away from it. Another had the sensation of pressure around his head. As we busied ourselves for her possible appearance, our most sensitive investigator felt her watching from a corner. Now we were both waiting.

The children of the house went to bed, the owners stayed up as long as they could trying not to be in the way but still curious about the tools we had brought and how to use them. They were looking for answers more than we were, they needed to understand what was happening. Around 11pm, the house cleared. The air was not as heavy though the storm still rumbled in the distance, the faint caressing of our skin faded and we suspected that she was not going to give in to a command performance. Waiting until after 2am, her usual time to wander the house, we packed up for the long journey home to another state. We know this game well by now, it's on her terms and we're just following the allure of the mist.