Ashley and Joey and Caiden moved into an old house last month. Since then they’ve been constantly confronted by a ghost. It makes noises, wakes up their child, opens doors and finally appeared as a disembodied face.
It’s a neat old house, built in the 1830’s in Batavia, Ohio. There has been a zillion generations thru this house, including one very famous tenant, Henry Clark Corbin, once a Major General of the U.S. Army, personal friend of U. S. Grant, and who was also present when President Garfield was shot. Since the ghost had an old fashioned female face, it was immediately thought it was the ghost of his wife, who could have died in this house.
The old house on Market street
The ghost is starting to get on the family’s nerves. Every night Caiden wakes up howling, and when his mother enters the room, he is facing the wall, staring at something. When Ashley goes to do the laundry, the door opens just before she gets there. Once she walked out of one room and ran smack into the apparition, with a face of a woman with her hair up, as was common in days long past. Something needed to be done.
That’s when she found CAPER on the internet. Known as the Cincinnati Area Paranormal Existence Research organization, it is a nonprofit group dedicated to scientific study of paranormal activity, or more clearly, ghost hunting in the Cincinnati area. Their mission seems more geared to living peacefully with ghosts, rather than exorcising them. They have lots of testimonials or their site, seemed to be legitimate, so called them up.
2 women came over, one veteran researcher, and an apprentice who took copious notes. They had some electrical device with them as electrical phenomena and ghosts seem to go hand in hand. They toured the house and found only 2 areas of electrical interest, one area by the fuse box, and one by the front door. The area of high electrical energy by the fuse box was easily explained, however that is where the door to the laundry room is. The veteran said ghosts sometimes use that electrical energy to be able to move things, hence the door opening by itself. Also to test the lock, with the door closed, you can’t push it open. Is it the ghost?
They didn’t think the haunting was bad enough to get serious. They thought just talking to the ghost in a friendly way, and telling them the rules, such as don’t scare the kid, would help so that every one could live in peace with one another. They could escalate the case if necessary, staying the night with a bunch of gear, and even bringing in a psychic if needed, but this activity usually makes hauntings worse, before bringing them to a successful conclusion. So for the time being, peaceful coexistence is the plan.
Recently my sister Peggy spent the night with OOPS, the Ohio Organization of Paranormal Studies, as they staked out Books ‘N’ More looking for ghostly activity. They brought with them lots of current ghost hunting technology, and Peggy got a byline in the Wilmington News Journal documenting the nights activities. The results for the night are to be posted soon on the OOPS website.
greg