Pineridge
Saturday September 16, 2006
Investigators present: Chris, Nikki, Tom
Length of visit: 1hour 45minutes
We were contacted by the homeowner in the spring. He asked us if we could explain some of the things he has experienced since Christmas 2005. A long time resident of the area, our client did not feel that his home was "haunted". Instead, he felt there must be some logical explanation for the events. He contacted CAPI, not because he believed we would automatically tell him there was a ghost, but because he knew we would look for the logical or scientific reasons and eliminate them first.
The team arrived at 16:15. We began going through our questionnaire to document both the activity and to help eliminate any non-paranormal explanations. Our client, his two children and their three cats have lived peacefully in their home for over a decade. When he first moved in, before any children were around, he did have a couple of unusual things happen. These appear to have been isolated incidents and not connected to the current activity. Our client dismissed them as strange and had nothing happen until December 2005.
Around Christmas 2005, the children found out they were going on a trip in the summer to visit their mother. When talking with the client during the phone interview, Tom made note that this might be poltergeist activity triggered by the exciting news (the children are of the right age to create a poltergeist). However, at the home, the team did not record anything directly related to the children.
As we continued with the questionnaire, Nikki "noticed a flickering light on the wall above the kitchen table. I looked for a source of this light, thinking it was possibly a reflection. I looked for the source of the reflection but couldn't find one. It looked like a bright flickering beam of sunlight glaring off water. I started taking pictures and captured an orb above Tom's head. This orb was small and about two feet from the original flickering light". The other team members and the homeowner did not see this light.
After finishing the questionnaire, we were given a short tour by the homeowner. He showed us the main bathroom where his toothbrush had disappeared, his youngest child's room where a stuffed animal had been "repositioned" (the child placed the doll on the pillow in a specific position and left the room for less than a minute. When the child came back, the doll was moved into a different position) and the "tooth fairy" had left a Toonie (the child placed a tooth under the pillow. In the morning there was a Toonie. The father could not explain this, as he had not known the child had lost the tooth). We were also shown where his oldest child had seen a "white glow" moving down the main floor hallway, from the bedrooms, and into the kitchen where it disappeared. Finally, we went into the basement where the master bedroom is located. This is where the homeowner's belt began swinging by itself one morning. We ended the tour in the home office, at the end of the basement hallway, where the homeowner has felt slightly uncomfortable at times.
The homeowners' children were very interested in what we were doing. The younger child decided to "help with our investigation" (with a friend who was visiting) while the older child mostly watched TV with their friend. It was somewhat humorous to watch these children take pictures with their own camera and enter darkened rooms with their flashlights at the ready. At times, the homeowner thought the kids were getting in our way, and we let him know that if they did, we would ask them to stop. While we were in both children's bedrooms, we did ask the kids to leave a couple of times so we could take instrument readings and get an accurate feel for the rooms. It was during our time in these bedrooms that we encountered high EMF readings.
The EMF detector registered in the mid-to-high range in the middle of each bedroom. The team was able to go around these "bubbles" of EMF and map their locations. We also found it interesting that the EMF readings were reduced the farther we moved away from the children's bedrooms. Chris wanted to know why. He started looking for something that could generate high levels of EMF in one area of the home and significantly lower levels in other areas. He found it by looking out the younger child's bedroom window.
Chris found Tom in the basement, where Tom was photo-documenting, and told Tom what he found in the children's bedrooms and what he found outside that may be the cause of the phenomenon. When Chris looked out the bedroom window, he saw high-tension power lines right behind the home. When he went outside to determine if these were in fact the cause of the unusually high EMF readings, the EMF detector red-lined as he approached them (the power lines follow the alley and are less than ten metres from the house).
A little later, after the initial photo-documentation and instrument sweep, the team concentrated on the kids bedrooms. Tom, Chris and Nikki took turns being alone in each kid's bedroom while the other team members were elsewhere in the home. Chris and Tom felt as though they were "chasing" something between the bedrooms. Both had the impression that, whatever it was, it did not want to communicate with a male. Nikki felt someone tap her shoulder in the older child's bedroom and had the impression it was a female that was only willing to communicate in some way with another female during our visit.
Our initial research has provided the following publicly available information:
High electromagnetic fields from power lines, while making for sensationalized media stories, have little or no detrimental effect on people with the exception of surface irritation (according to the World Health Organization. They have compiled studies from over 30+ years of EM research). Our theory is, these surface irritations can be misinterpreted as paranormal activity in locations that do not have confirmed paranormal activity. This location, however, does have paranormal activity. Were the high EMF readings causing the paranormal activity? Our research over the years has suggested that places where we have recorded paranormal activity almost always have higher than normal EMF and compass readings. Most of those locations did not have high-tension power lines within metres of the building, though. Spirits need energy to interact with our dimensional plane. They get this energy from many sources - electrical devices, excess energy from groups of people and moving water. It's possible that whatever presence is in this home is tapping into the power from these lines thereby creating the activity.
At the time of this report, our case file remains open. We may ask our client for a second investigation to confirm our findings and to test our theories.
