by Rich Newman
I watched the recordings very carefully—mostly because I did not want to have to watch them a second time—and saw/heard nothing out of the ordinary. Twelve hours and 200 yawns later, I wrapped up this part of the review with nothing to show for it. Unfortunately, this is usually the case with video.
As I’ve learned from years of experience, pointing a camcorder at the right place—and at the right time—can be a difficult chore at best (remember the apparition at Magnolia Manor?). I had to hope that the DVR system the Mississippi team had in place had managed to capture something paranormal (and hopefully the materialization of the watch in the master bedroom). Now it was time to move on to the audio recordings—typically the most fruitful footage collected during an investigation.
Unlike the photos and video, going over the audio would prove to be the most challenging—and the most rewarding—part of the review. The challenge came from the fact that there were eight people present in the small trailer—and it was rare that all eight of us stopped talking at the same time.
Of course, through most of the recordings, only the folks doing EVP (electronic voice phenomena) work were speaking, with the rest of us sitting quietly and listening for any type of response. There were also huge chunks of audio where nobody was in the room at all with the audio recorder, so reviewing this audio was quite easy.
Once I became accustomed to the voices of those who were present, and I was able to consult my notes to see where everyone was located at what time, analyzing the audio became a (relatively) straightforward task.
Over the course of reviewing the eighteen hours of audio, I found several different, but interesting, clips:
When I was initially in the master bedroom doing some EVP work with Terri, the audio recorder captured a strange voice that sounded exactly like a young girl—and there were no young girls present in the place. And, strangely enough, it almost sounded like the girl said “mommy” when Joanne was speaking in the adjoining living room. Emily perhaps?
Again, I was performing EVP work in the master bedroom when the audio recorder captured the crystal clear sounds of a young girl speaking (again) in the background. Several syllables are audible, though I could not recognize any specific words.
Right after the second recording of the young girl speaking, I asked another couple of EVP questions and then there’s the infamous rumble in the master bedroom. It was loud and clear on the audio recorder, just as I suspected. It’s always nice when evidence backs up a personal experience!
A little while later, after the same audio recorder captured the rumble, a couple members of the Mississippi group were performing EVP work with me again in the master bedroom. I ask for anybody “present” to knock on the wall for me. There is a clear knock of response that we heard while listening to the recording in real time (which verified what I had heard on location, though I wasn’t absolutely certain).
At one point, we were all outside taking a break, so the trailer was completely empty. An audio recorder in the master bedroom had managed to record an audible male moan and the sound of a bang—almost as if someone was trying to get our attention. Was this another case of an entity not liking being ignored? I would have to explore this during my next visit.
The audio recorder that was placed in Julie’s bedroom picked up several interesting things. Several times over the course of the evening, a clear voice whispering could be heard in the room. During these occasions, you can hear us working in the background in another room—and most of the time, this room is sealed off from the rest of the trailer, so you can only hear a muffled version of our voices (and this is only when we are talking at full volume). So for a whisper to be so clear and audible, it would have had to occur right by the recorder. On another interesting note, at times the whispers sounded male and at others, female.
Now I was really scratching my head. The evidence seemed to indicate that something, indeed, was afoot at the Martin home. Most of the activity had happened in the master bedroom—just like Joanne and the others said. And there seemed to be at least one male and one female entity in the trailer—also, just like they had reported. And while at no point did any voice confirm a name for any of the entities, the benefit of the doubt now had to swing in favor of Joanne and family.
Once I had documented all the things I had found during my review, I made a quick call to the Mississippi group to let them know what I had found and to check in with their review. Unfortunately, nothing untoward was found on their audio and video equipment.
The video camera that was placed in the master bedroom was, unfortunately, out of frame when the watch materialized, so there was no footage to back this up. This, of course, was crushing news to me. I had hoped that this had been captured on video, as it would have made for some rather dramatic evidence.
Terri then reiterated to me Joanne’s desire to have the house blessed, so I agreed to find someone to do this before I returned. Since I had captured some relatively good evidence of the haunting, returning to the trailer to discuss the findings with Joanne would be necessary. It would also give me the opportunity to perform a follow-up investigation and possibly debunk the photo I had taken personally.
In a lot of ways, I dreaded returning to Mississippi and telling Joanne and her family about my findings. While I was sure that they would be relieved to get some confirmation of paranormal activity, I was also sure that this might make them even more anxious about staying in the trailer over the long term.
But, even worse, there was the possibility that playing the EVP voices could cause them to spiral even further into their obsession concerning the activity and cause even more paranoia/hysteria. It was to be a dreaded meeting, indeed …
The Nonreality of Reality Television
Most associate sitting down with the owners of a haunted place to discuss the evidence found during an investigation with the television show Ghost Hunters. On this program, the members of TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) sit pleasantly across from the owners of the property they have just investigated, and then show them what they have found, and everyone leaves with a joke and a smile.
Of course, there is also a camera rolling the entire time, so it’s no wonder the property owners always seem a little too comfortable with the findings—even findings that contradict their own experiences.
In real life, this is not always the case. In fact, it usually isn’t the case. If you bring back evidence of a haunting to an owner who wants nothing to do with such a thing (or is possibly frightened by it), there is usually a great deal of panic that must be dealt with. What do they do about the haunting? Should they call in a priest?
Conversely, sometimes clients really want their home or business to be haunted for whatever reason—or they are completely convinced that they have a ghost. Telling these people that you found nothing can open a whole can of indignation and finger-pointing regarding your investigation methods. In these instances, it’s usually best to point out that spirits don’t perform on cue and that finding no evidence doesn’t necessarily mean a place isn’t haunted. Then run.
It’s actually quite amazing how many investigators in the field have learned how to ghost hunt from watching television programs. They’re pretty easy to spot—especially when you take them out with you on an investigation. They will typically have unusually low attention spans, use terms like “dead time,” and tend to gravitate toward trendy gear like the ridiculously ludicrous “Frank’s Box” or “Radio Shack Hack” (essentially an AM/FM radio with a broken scan button that can supposedly tune in the voices of the dead).
On the positive side, the ghost programs have done a few good things for the paranormal field. The popularity of such things as EMF detectors and infrared illuminators have caused the prices of these items to drop considerably, since more of these types of products are sold these days—and the availability of these devices is at an all-time high.
It’s also much more acceptable to admit you actually work in the paranormal field, you are a ghost hunting enthusiast, or that you have a haunting. Of course this openness has also created a whole new marketing strategy for a number of places (the haunted tourist stop) and created rock stars out of certain televised paranormal groups, but you take the good with the bad, right?
That said, I doubted that the “reveal” at the Martin trailer would be anything like the shows on television.
Making a Few Calls
The evidence we gathered during our first night at the trailer, coupled with some of our personal experiences, seemed to confirm that the place was haunted. Whether or not any of the entities could be considered “nonhuman,” though, was still up in the air. I had found nothing that would support this (and I couldn’t seriously consider the moth)—though if I were to take the possessions seriously, this type of event would be more likely to occur with such a presence in the trailer. I decided this would be a good question to ask some clergy.
Not surprisingly, as soon as I started contacting various churches in Joanne’s area, it became clear that nobody was interested in visiting the trailer. The home was square in the middle of Baptist/Pentecostal country, and the idea of blessing a haunted trailer was simply a nonstarter.
I kept searching, though, and while looking on the internet I came across an interesting blog that was written by a Catholic priest named Father Joe Jenkins (his real name), who is the pastor of the Holy Family Church and a priest in the Archdiocese of Washington, DC.
Father Joe had written an article about the infamous possession case portrayed in the movie The Exorcist and seemed quite knowledgeable on the subject. Furthermore, he actually knew one of the priests involved with that case. After reading his articles on possession, I decided to contact him for some advice concerning the episodes involving Tim, even though I knew I might not get a reply from him before heading back to Mississippi (or at all).
In the meantime, my search for a home blessing had paid off. I received an email from a minister I’ll call “Frank” who serviced a Unitarian church in Alabama. He was open to the possibility of hauntings and ghosts and was more than willing to visit Joanne’s home to bless it. I thanked him (and my lucky stars) and decided to make another call: to the sheriff’s office where Joanne lived.
After much explaining to the amusement of the deputy on call at the sheriff’s office, I managed to get a few pieces of information about the Martin home and family:
The trailer was known locally for being haunted. According to this deputy, stories about the ghosts there were spread by local kids who heard first-hand tales from (probably) Julie. As a result, not all the rocks and the like thrown at the trailer were done by invisible hands.
Officers had, indeed, responded to several calls at the residence—including a night where two squad cars were sitting in Joanne’s driveway getting bombarded by rocks that came from nowhere. The angry officers quickly scouted the area, flashlights in hand, looking for the perpetrators, but could find no one. They even called out a fire unit that brought along a thermal camera, hoping to see the heat signature of someone hiding in the trees. But nobody was there and the rocks still came.
The officer also confirmed the area’s history of racial violence. In the not-too-distant past, quite a few people had turned up missing or dead there. As he asked me more about this subject, I realized I had gotten very few specifics concerning “John” or what may have happened to him. I resolved to correct this when I returned to the trailer.
Not long after getting this information, I received an email from Father Joe Jenkins, the priest I had contacted. He told me some interesting things …
The Exorcist
Whether or not most people know it, the case of possession that’s portrayed in the movie The Exorcist is a true one. Only it didn’t involve a young girl. The real victim was a young boy who lived in Cottage City, Maryland. Author Peter Blatty read about the case in the local paper there and then went on to write his best-selling book about the subject.
More recently, author Thomas B. Allen penned a book titled Possessed that details the actual events surrounding the real exorcism of the boy from Maryland. Though this book is, in itself, quite riveting reading, I picked up a copy for an entirely different reason.
Though I was interested in reading the book, I was mostly intrigued by the “diary” that was kept by the performers of the original exorcism during their ritual. This diary is included in the back of the book Possessed for everyone to read. And riveting stuff it is.
According to the book, after the boy consulted with a local priest in Mt. Rainier, Maryland, concerning the strange things that were happening to him, he actually traveled with his mother to St. Louis, Missouri, to undergo the ritual of exorcism. During this ceremony, the Jesuit priests involved (Fathers Bishop, Bowdern, and Halloran) documented what happened in the diary. I was curious how many of the documented “symptoms” of possession, as well as personal experiences that occurred during the exorcism, would apply to Tim and his episodes.
Interestingly, there were a few parallel events. Specifically, the young boy was initially plagued by the sounds of scratching in the floor/walls of his bedroom and objects that seemed to move around him of their own accord. Both of these things had happened in the Martin home—with Tim present in the living room.
When the clergy looked into the background of the boy’s household, there was evidence that an aunt who was into Spiritualism had used a Ouija board on the premises, and also possibly held a séance. These were elements that, to my knowledge, did not occur in the Martin property, though I would specifically find out on my return visit.
Also, the boy would go on to experience his bed vibrating/banging and priests attending the boy would witness pieces of heavy furniture moving by themselves. Again, this was just a little too close to the furniture/bed flying about the master bedroom at the Martin trailer for my taste. But that was where the comparisons stopped, since Tim had never remained for any length of time in a possessed state.
Father Joe Jenkins had mentioned much of this information on his website, as well as debunked many of the myths that now surround the famous possession case (mostly due to the sensational nature of the movie). Luckily, the priest had found the time to respond to the email I had sent him regarding the Martin case and the possible possession there.
In his email to me, he wrote that, “Various elements you describe are familiar,” in reference to the events surrounding Tim’s bouts of possession, and then he related to me something that I did not know.
According to Gabriele Amorth, the chief exorcist to the diocese of Rome, most (if not all) hauntings have a demonic element to them. He states that these demons delight in mimicking the dead and that the more the family dwells/obsesses on the ghost/demon, the more power it has. Gulp.
I had also asked the priest in my email whether or not he believed in the famous exorcism case portrayed in the movie/book, and whether he thought the boy was, indeed, actually possessed, as many have claimed. Not only did Father Joe think the boy was possessed, but he personally knew a priest in Maryland who was involved with the case and who was forever changed by what he had witnessed from the boy.
While I was digesting all of this information, a strange thought suddenly struck me. Didn’t the movie The Exorcist II: The Heretic have a moth in it? I took a trip to my local movie store, bought the movie, and gave it a watch—and, sure enough, the demon in the movie would often fly around as an insect (I couldn’t tell if it was a moth or not, but it sure looked like one).
Could the exorcist movies be influencing Tim and Joanne’s opinion of their haunting? If they were, this wouldn’t be a first. As I previously mentioned, rectories all over the country were flooded with false possession cases when the original movie was screened.
It was obvious that this case wasn’t getting any easier
. As amazing as the eyewitness accounts were with the Martin case, it was clear that I would have to be open to the possibility that they could be experiencing exactly what they claimed.
Planning a Second Trip
Armed with all this new information and having arranged for a blessing of the home, I felt like I could now return to the Martin household. Despite the opinion of Father Amorth, I still decided to avoid any reference to possession, exorcism, or infestation regarding this case.
I feared that if the investigation spiraled down this path, things could go very bad, very fast. I was barely able to arrange a house blessing, so I didn’t want to imagine the difficulty involved with getting a Catholic priest to the home to investigate the possible need for an exorcism (if the ritual could even be done for a non-Catholic).
I was convinced a blessing would put the Martin family’s minds at ease and that despite the evidence I had gotten, they could come to terms with the idea of ghost or two residing on their property.
Unfortunately, it would take a few weeks to make the return voyage into the delta and a few things would change in the Martin household. It was also at this time that I started experiencing some strange activity myself …
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6
Trouble at Home
As I mentioned earlier, I once lived in a house with a mild haunting. And though the ghost there did little to indicate its presence, I always lived with the knowledge that it was, indeed, there.
Over the years, though, I slowly became accustomed to my unseen guest—especially when I looked at the whole situation as a mystery that needed to be solved. But, unfortunately, having a ghost wasn’t the only unexplainable thing to happen to me while living in this house.
