Masonic Cemetery 1

We met up with some friends a couple of weeks ago to do a sunset walkthrough of the Masonic Cemetery just outside Central City, CO  - didn’t break out all the gear, just still cameras and my digital voice recorder. (We’d spent that day rafting, so this was going to be a short investigation…)

We’d been told that the place is active with EVP’s, thought we’d give it a shot.

Masonic Cemetery 2

The cemetery itself is one Central City’s smaller, and older, cemeteries. It is perched high above the so-called “Central City Highway”, a newly built two lane road that connects the gambling town to I70, so on a Saturday evening, there’s a fair bit of road noise.

We caught two possible EVP’s here – neither high quality but worthy of note.

On this one, you can hear a muffled male voice right after I say “talk to me” – the selection is very short and the response really isn’t audible. At this time, only Sharon and I were in the cemetery.

This second possible EVP seems to have a female voice saying “yes” immediately after I say “greet me this evening”, and before I clear my throat…very fast.

Main Floor DFM

A number of paranormal claims come from this facility, once Denver’s main firehouse. A small closet in the basement is reputedly haunted by a miner named Caleb, who has a thing about not leaving the door open. We captured an interesting EVP in there when we first investigated a couple of years ago, you can hear it on our Locations page here.  The faucets in the men’s bathroom upstairs  have a way of turning themselves on and off, and there are apparently the spirits of two children rescued from a Denver fire back in the 20′s who were killed when the engine they were riding on turned over in an accident. We may have caught them in a prior investigation - again, see the Locations page for that EVP.

The downstairs office is reputedly haunted by Tom, the DFD’s last horse wrangler – his presence has been evidenced by various forms of mischief on and around the desk. I decided to concentrate my efforts on this office on this investigation, mostly because I wanted to go after some EVP evidence.

One interesting bit, located below. About 11 seconds in length, there is very faint male whisper at about 6 seconds into clip, lasting until I start my sentence about sensing some reluctance on Tom’s part to reveal himself. Sharon and I were the only ones in the room – there were voices outside the office, but there was a distinct echo/reverb effect to those voices, and this sounds very much like an in-room whisper. We are unable to make out what it seems to say.

We have yet to finish all the video, we’ll post if we find anything extraordinary. This investigation was conducted with our friends at Full Moon, and we had a pretty full roster that night. The DFM has alot of wood floors and glass, so the voices and footsteps of other investigators make capturing audio evidence a real challenge.

This is a great facility with helpful and friendly staff, and we look forward to a return trip soon.

 Referral Notes:

BCRS contacted us regarding an investigation of a private residence – rented apartment – in Lakewood, CO. Due to the small space, I agreed to participate w/out Sharon. 

My contact Richard indicated that the contact had reported a number of visual anomalies. Specifically: 

-Moving shadows along the (east?) wall beside the contact’s bed.

-Extremely proximate shadow/black mass to the contact’s head while in bed.

-Shadows appearing at the foot of her bed.

-“Beams” of light appearing in her bedroom, extending from wall to wall.

-Orb of light appearing in bedroom

-Nightlight being obscured 

Contact is a 40ish female who lives alone, with a variety of moderately debilitating health conditions, including thyroid and mobility issues. 

Contact interaction: 

I met the contact at 0800, being the first of three investigators to arrive. Contact, her male friend and I chatted for an hour or so in her well lit and recently tidied living room, while awaiting the arrival of Richard and Kira. During this time, we discussed a variety of subjects regarding the phenomena and the environment. Specifically: 

-The appearance of a shadow figure in her kitchen

-A reiteration of the phenomena in her bedroom, consistent with her previous written accounts

-Reports of apparitions around the complex by other residents, including a balding man in military fatigues seen by the apartment manager and one other resident, and the appearance of a female child, who is linked anecdotally to a female child, a former complex resident, who had died of cancer. Time frame is unknown. 

Interaction impressions: 

Regarding the phenomena, contact seemed to display a notable diffidence regarding the shadows and other phenomena reported – no great sense of fear, concern for personal well-being, no noticeable spiritual-based reactions. In her initial contact with Richard, she indicated a concern about ridicule for reporting these phenomena, yet seemed to regard them (conversationally) matter-of-factly and she displayed a reluctance to use the term “haunted” to describe her apartment.  

Investigation: 

-Low cost EMF meter, with EMF intensity alarm / flashing light
-Sony ICD-P320 Digital recorder
-Sony DCR-SR82 Camcorder, with Nightshot mode and hotshoe IR light
-Sony HDR-XR200 HD Camcorder, with Nightshot mode and hotshoe IR light

-Pentax  Optio W30 digital camera (8mp)

-Tripods, etc 

Upon Richard’s arrival (~2130), I turned on the EMF meter and positioned on the corner of the cocktail table 8-10” above the floor while Richard was going through introductions and contact interview. 

After about 15 minutes, the meter registered a significant and sustained response, jumping from a steady 1mgs to ~3.25mgs. After two or three minutes, the meter indicator dropped back to initial baseline. 

We eventually positioned the EMF meter on the floor and lined up two other meters bedside it, and during the next hour, several additional spikes occurred, all meters reading relatively consistent results. This process repeated at least 20x, in durations lasting from 10 seconds to five minutes. 

Kira examining EMF spikes from EMF and K2 on the floor.

Eventually, we traced an apparently rectangular area on the floor just inside the living room entryway where the EMF phenomena would repeat. During periods of EMF activity, there was a well-defined area across the floor where the activity would register on the meters, and outside the border of the area, none would register. We attempted over the course of 3 hours to correlate these EMF spikes to regular time intervals – results were inconclusive, and unpersuasive toward an explanation of some timed EMF event beneath the floor. 

Evidence – Visual

Several still shots taken the apartment revealed nothing of note. 

Sony DCR-SR82 – A 35 minute recording session taken (after my departure) of the contact sleeping her bed, in the darkened bedroom (w/ nightlight on, on the opposite wall, as is her habit) was unrevealing, with the exception of faint whispering sounds that may or may not have been the result of Kira and Richard chatting in the kitchen. As the contact’s back was turned toward the wall and away from the camera, it is impossible to tell if the whispering was the contact herself. Although the contact awoke reporting that she heard a voice immediately above her head, the camera’s batteries had expired by this time and the event was not captured. 

Sony HDR-XR200 – Nothing of note. 

Evidence – Auditory 

Approximately 90 minutes total of audio recordings were made. 

Several interesting results were recorded. 

 “Lakewood Clip2” – Taken in the contact’s bedroom, with the door closed, there are two instances of what sounds like a child (“Veronica”?) at approximately :24 secs and :57 secs, the latter being much fainter. There is also an interesting hissing/clicking sound immediately after the second anomaly. The audio clip below is an excerpt from this recording – the anomalous voice can be heard at about the 5 second mark – the other voices are the subject chatting with Richard and Kira in the other room. Confidence 3.5/5

 “Lakewood Clip4_1” – Taken the living room during the investigation of the EMF spikes, an anomalous voice (loud) appears on the recording at approx :18 secs, just prior to Kira’s voice discussing the EMF response from a cable around the TV area. Unable to decipher. Uncertain if it was Kira, but didn’t sound like it. Confidence: 2/5. 

“Lakewood Clip4_2” – Taken from the same recording session, there is an audible “breath” sound, suggesting male. Approx :57 secs into clip. Confidence: 1/5 

Personal Impressions 

The only interesting personal event for me was a sudden and inexplicable “chill” (goosebumps, moderate to heavy discomfort) in first walkthrough of the darkened bedroom. Lasted about 8 – 10 seconds. 

My view of the contact and her relationship to these phenomena is mixed. Her reports appeared consistent, if somewhat matter-of-fact. There did not seem to be an emotional response to the phenomena – neither fear nor intense curiosity. Although she did not report being on heavy medication, I do believe that her somewhat serious chronic medical issues and her struggles with mobility lend themselves to a particularly intense relationship with her space and a heightened awareness of changes within it. I also found it interesting that despite the reported frequency of these events (as often as every other night, beginning a year and a half ago) she has made little or no reported effort to investigate/record these events herself. 

Having said this, the independently reported phenomena around the apartment complex suggest this may well be an active spot, and thus her accounts must be cast in some context. Whether her experiences began after she had heard of these external phenomena or before is unclear – when asked about timeline of the external phenomena, she was somewhat unclear. She did indicate that she had experienced “unusual” phenomena more or less her whole life, although did not characterize herself as a “sensitive”.  

Regarding the evidence, I would say that I did not hear any sounds coming from adjoining (vertically or laterally) apartments while in the contact’s apartment. My confidence level in the EVP recordings is low to moderate – the child’s voice (excerpted above) being the most compelling for me. 

The EMF spikes were very interesting, as they did not lend themselves easily to explainable infrastructure EMF event. Personal bias suggests that a paranormal energy would likely not reveal itself with such well defined spatial borders, yet material explanations for the EMF spikes seem inadequate as well. 

End