Residuals

The professor gave me some reading material on residual energies. Sometimes, when an event or an emotion is so powerful, it leaves a shadow of itself behind. This residual will usually repeat itself at a certain time and seem more or less unaware of anyone or anything around it. It's like watching a movie.

Except for one thing, the music box ghost was a textbook residual haunting. It goes off at a little after two in the morning, the same time the cousin died from her cancer. I don't know if she ever actually played the music box, or if it was something she strongly craved as she lay dying. The old lady who owns the house told us that she frequently played it for her cousin, who was way too sick to get out of bed. The prefessor says a lot of hauntings are probably just residuals. Especially in older buildings, which often are made from iron, quartz, and slate, which are supposedly good conductors of energy.

The one thing that was strange about the music box ghost, is the way I saw it while half asleep, assuming I really did. The woman seemed to smile at me. That shows interaction.

The Professor thinks I just dreamed her. Maybe I did. But then again, maybe real ghosts don't show up on film. Maybe they can only be seen when you're in some kind of altered state. That would certainly explain why there are so few ghost recordings, and so many freaking fakes. I'll have to do some research on that.

The Music Box Ghost Wrap-up

From a scientific perspective, we didn't get anything useful. No EMF changes, nothing on the camera or infrared, other than us bounding around like bulls in a china shop. We do have a recording of the music box playing, but that on its own doesn't really say much. It could have a sensitive trigger, or any of several other possible explanations. No one else saw any ghostly woman, or dreamed it, as the case may be.

So is the house haunted? The Team couldn't say "yes," as we had nothing empirical to base that sort of statement. Did it freak us out? Hell yeah it did.

We debriefed the old lady, and she answered our vagueness with another shrug. "I guess if she needed something from us, she would have said so," she said.

The Professor says it may not be a ghost, per se (he talks like that a lot). It could just be some sort of remnant, or residual energy. Like the smell of chocolate after you've finished eating cookies. Something left in passing through. He told me not to worry too much about my dream. People are very suggestible, and we were in a tense situation. But to let him know if it happens again.

But it certainly felt like something happened. There's nothing to base that on other than a purely irrational feeling, but it's there all the same.

We'll see how the next one goes.

FUBAR

As scientific endeavors go, this one was a bust. But I think we found us a ghost.

Let me back up a bit.

After we set up the camera and the mics and stuff, we had a twenty minute debate on whether or not we should wind up the music box, so it would be easier to play, wind it down so playing would be more impressive, or leave it the hell alone. We asked the old lady what she normally did, and she shrugged. "If I listen to it I wind it up," she said. So we gave it a couple winds, listened to make sure it worked, and put it back on the table.

We took shifts watching the box. I had the first shift, which was pretty uneventful, other than Doug having some mighty nasty gas which could scare even a dead lady away. A little after midnight Raj and Mia were on deck. Doug went upstairs to check his email, and I streatched out on the sofa. I didn't think I was sleepy yet, so I just watched Raj and Mia do their thing (you know, trying to coax the ghost out, talking reassuringly, and trying not to giggle). A little after 1am I dozed off.

And then it got a little freaky.

I was just sleeping lightly, sort of the way when you have time between classes but not enough to call it a day. I wouldn't have thought I was in REM sleep yet, but I dreamed. I dreamed I saw a twisted old woman in a hospital gown stand up in the middle of the room. She smiled at me and went over to the music box. She sort of glided, as her legs were too bent to walk. When she opened the music box she transformed into a young, healthy looking woman.

I woke up to music.

Then a crash as Raj knocked the camera over and cursed. The music box was playing something I'd heard before, I think it was Moonlight Sonata. I think it took Raj by surprise as he kicked the camera over. Mia was watching the EMF and the recorder with an equal look of surprise on her face. The light was dim, but not completely dark due to the kitchen light upstairs and the light from equipment and a downstairs clock, but there was no ghost that we could see, bent woman or young woman.

Raj leveled the camera again and said, "Not getting anything. Liz, if you're awake can you check out the music box?"

I went over to the music box. I didn't feel any chills or weird disturbances, and nothing seemed to be around the box. I waved my hand around the air a few times; nothing. "Ok to pick up the box?" I asked. Raj and Mia gave me the all clear. I picked up thebox. It played a few more notes then was silent.

"That was strange," said Mia.

Right now, sitting in the dark typing away, I think it was a ghost. In the morning I may feel differently. We'll review what we have around lunchtime with the Professor. I need to get some sleep.

We're Here

We've just arrived and I'm testing the hardware by making sure my laptop is working. Obviously, it is.

I was a little nervous about what to wear. I wanted to be comfortable, as I was going to be at the lady's house for a while, but I didn't want to scare her or look unprofessional. I could have gone all Matrix, but that was a little too theatrical for me. I ended up just wearing some black tights, my pink Supergirl tee, and a dressy looking jacket over it. I wore some neutral Target brand sandals instead of my traditional combat boots.

The old lady is nice, if a bit scatter brained. She's not worried about whether or not she has a ghost, just whether or not the ghost is stuck here. She was with the maybe ghost when she died, and wants her to move on.

We'll be taking shifts in the room the music box is in. It's a moderate sized den with a comfy sofa, afireplace, and a wall of old books. The TV is probably about fifty years old. The middle of the room is clear except for carpeting, but that's where the hospital bed used to be. The old lady's cousin died from bone cancer here.

She just brought me pepsi and some lemon squares. :)

A Haunting We Will Go

Tonight we're visiting an old lady with a maybe ghost. We don't think it's very likely, but we figure it will be a good trial run for everyone, as it's our first time working together. The lady lives alone; her husband is in assisted living with Alzheimer's. She keeps hearing a downstairs music box playing at night. Her guess is that it's a relative who died from cancer in the room with the music box.

So we'll be checking it out tonight.