Silver Springs
Thursday June 17, 2004
Investigators present: Chris, Tom
Visit length: 1hour 40minutes
We were contacted by the homeowner who was concerned about some 'goings on' in their house. They have lived in this house for almost 3 years and have documented several events that began shortly after moving in.
Chris and Tom arrived at 19:00 on a very pleasant evening. As we walked up to the front door, Chris had the feeling he had been to this house before. We were greeted by the homeowner who gave us a quick tour of the house. About halfway through this tour, Chris realized why he had felt this house was familiar - apparently he grew up in a house with the EXACT same floor plan. It was like deja vu all over again! We finished our tour and then wandered separately through the house to get a 'feel' for the place and photo-documenting each room. After a short while we sat down with the owner and discussed our initial findings.
We found that the owner had a very lovely place that exuded a welcoming, homey feel. Translation: Unfortunately, while we were investigating the location, nothing happened. This is one of the pitfalls of paranormal investigating. Every now and then we are unable to document or verify that a house is haunted. This does not mean that the homeowner was imagining the events they experienced. Rather, we were not privy to any events. We speculate that any spiritual energy in the house either decided not to show itself to us or is a possible 'roaming' entity that may be circulating through a few houses in the neighbourhood (which would explain certain lapses in activity the homeowner has noticed). We believe the entity to be harmless. Why? Because the homeowner has experienced many 'events' and none show a malevolent force.
The following are the journal entries of the homeowner, documenting some of the paranormal events that have occurred in the past 3 years (only the names have been changed to protect the identity of the homeowner).
Fall 2002
The first weekend I moved into the house, I was alone with my dog. It was a Saturday morning. I was up late and then up very early to take my dog to the vet. She was very ill and throwing up a lot. I left her at the vet. When I came home I was very tired and decided to take a nap on my bed. I was just drifting off when I was positive that I could hear two men standing in my bedroom doorway. They were talking about me. I don't know what they were saying though. My back was turned to the door but I could sense or almost "see" them there. I decided that if someone was in my house, I was going to roll over with fists punching. No one was there. Did I dream it?
Fall/Early Winter 2002
Water turning on and off in the kitchen, D running water, M watching from kitchen table.
Winter 2002
- Water turning on and off twice in the basement bedroom shower (M1).
- Pen falling in the middle of the kitchen floor. M sitting at table and D giving M a hug. Where pen came from is unknown as there wasn't one on the table or either of us holding one.
- Late evening, M & D were upstairs in the bedroom when we heard the dog barking. I got up to investigate and heard the dog barking in the basement. I turned on the stairway lights and started downstairs calling "B". She came running up the stairs with her "hackles" up. I scoped her up and asked her what she was barking at. As I walked down the stairs with her, I was talking to her and asking her what was she barking at. I turned on the ceiling lights as I walked through the basement. Usually she likes to be picked up and held but this time she was squirming to get out of my arms. I put her down and she ran to the stairs and up she went very quickly. When I called her to the top of the stairs, she wouldn't come to me but was in her basket in the computer room.
Late Winter 2003
- We had torn up the cement concrete on the side of the house in order to plant grass etc. in the summer. M put a padlock on the chain link gate to keep people from going into the yard. We were concerned that someone might trip on the torn up concrete and wanted to avoid an accident. When M locked it, they tested the strength of the lock and its connection to the gate to make sure it wouldn't open. It was secure. The padlock could only be opened with a key that we kept hanging on the key rack in the house. A couple of days after M locked it, I came home after work and M asked me if I unlocked the side gate. I said I hadn't been near the gate the entire time. M stated that the lock was still locked but the gate was wide open after getting home that day. The key to the lock was in the house on the same hook on the key rack where M had put it a couple of days ago.
- I had gotten into the habit of stopping in the garage on my way to catch my morning bus to work in order to have a quick smoke. We didn't smoke in the house at that time. As I unlocked the garage door (we always keep it locked if we are not in the yard) and opened the door, I saw something shinny and twinkly move very swiftly under M's car parked in the garage. It startled me at first. I thought it might be a mouse or cat that had snuck into the garage. I banged on the trunk of the car to scare it out. Nothing moved or ran out. I then figured it was snow or frost that was attached to the car and it just fell to the ground as I opened the door. I looked under the car approximately where it had been shinning. I was expecting to see snow or at the very least a puddle of water. The ground was dry and nothing was there. What the hell was it??
Spring 2003
I came home from work (May 1?) one day and M told me about picking up the socks I had thrown on the basement floor by the stairs. M told me that they didn't need to be washed as they were clean. I told M that I hadn't washed anything in the last couple of days except a basket of whites that I had bleached, dried, put in a big basket and left it in my bedroom. I hadn't even seen the socks M was talking about when I was sorting the clothes. I usually separate the clothes in piles before I wash them and there were no dark socks of M's when I had done this a day or two earlier. Yes, I had piles of clothes on the floor by the laundry for a couple of days. I try to do the laundry when I can. Who washed, dried and put M's socks at the bottom of the stairs? Were they put at the bottom of the stairs so that we would find them?
Summer (July 25, 2003)
The heat has been around 30 C. M and I moved the spare bed into the basement bedroom so that we will be able to get some sleep during this heat. I moved each of our alarm clocks down there and set each of them for the correct current time. M is getting up at 5:00 a.m. and I usually get up at 6:15 a.m. I set my alarm time and M set theirs. We went to bed in the coolness of the basement. At approximately 12:30 a.m. M's alarm went off. I had to wake M up as they kept sleeping through it. M got up mumbling that it felt like they had just gone to sleep. I looked at my clock and saw that it was 12:30 and not 5:00 as M's clock said. M tried to figure out what had happened. I said to just turn it off and I'd reset my clock for 5:00 and then would reset it for my time when M got up. It wasn't until M left for work that morning and I was getting up at, what I thought was, 6:16. I went up stairs to get ready for work and saw that my clock was at least 15 minutes fast.
That night M and I discussed what could have happened to the clocks. The plug-ins were in a wall outlet that was controlled by a dimmer switch on the wall. I make sure the dimmer was turned all the way up. M suggested that maybe a dimmer switch didn't give the clocks enough electricity to keep the time correct. I didn't believe this was possible but, I moved the clocks to another out-let in the same bedroom that wasn't controlled by the dimmer switch. The next morning my clock was again 10 minutes fast. This time, M's clock was also 10 minutes fast. Awhile back, I had a young roommate, M1, living in that room for about 9 months. M1 commented more than once that they were having problems with the clock in their bedroom. This clock was a wall clock that ran on batteries. We never thought much about it until now.
October 13, 2003
The day after we had numerous people over for Thanksgiving dinner, we spent the day cleaning and relaxing in the family room watching TV. It was later in the afternoon while watching TV that M hit the mute button on the remote and strained to hear something. What I heard was a voice from up stairs. M heard it as well and walked to the bottom of the stairs and said "Hello, who's there?". I didn't react as I thought it was the answering machine. The fact that none of the 3 telephones we have didn't ring didn't enter my mind. The phone down stairs with us is a landline so even if the two other cordless phones were dead, this one would have at least rang. M cautiously went up the stairs asking "Who's there?". When M got up stairs, "B" was looking through the front living room window wagging her tail. Both doors were locked and all windows were as well. The answering machine had no message on it either. M told me that at first they thought someone had walked through the front door, as the voice seemed to be coming from the front end of the house and not the kitchen. I told M it was probably someone leaving a message. M told me there was no message on the machine. At that point I clued in that none of the telephones had even rang. M asked me what I heard and I said just a voice but I didn't know what it was saying. I thought it was a man's voice but couldn't be sure. M was adamant that it was a lady's voice saying "hello, hello?". "Am I losing my mind?" M asked me. "We both heard something. I don't know what but, we both heard a voice." I didn't feel afraid or upset. I think that whomever is hanging out with us is not angry or mean. I think they just like to be known once in a while.
May, 2004
During the week, I came home from work to find the west garage bay door open. I simply figured that M came home during the day (as they had left before me that morning) and had accidentally left it open before they left again. I looked around and saw that no one was in the garage. I closed the garage and asked M about it when they came home. M said that they had not come home during the day and that the garage door was in fact closed when they had left. We had not had that problem since I've lived in the house (3.5 years) and have not had this same problem since.
May 19(?), 2004 (evening)
I was downstairs doing laundry. I had the stereo on listening to the radio while I was putting laundry in and sorting. After about 20 minutes or so, I turned off the lights in the laundry room, turned off the stereo and was heading for the stairs to go back upstairs. Just as I was about to put my foot onto the first step, the stereo went on again. I stopped, turned around, said hey, "Hey, come on, give me a break." I walked back to the stereo and turned it off again. I waited for a few seconds to see if it would stay off. It did and I went back up stairs.
