Birdcage, Tombstone, Ghost Hunt!

(Me in front of the Black Mariah Hearse)

I have soooooo much photos and videos and such that I'm breaking this down. Today, I am showing you pics and videos and telling you what happened.

We arrived in the daytime to check out the Birdcage. My team consisted of a complete newbie who wanted to experience it, a husband and wife team who have been hunting for a very long time, Julie who had done smaller hunts and was ready for dive into the deep end, my buddy Vinnie who wanted to test some technology on the hunt and James, the very best EVP specialist I could recommend.

We cased out the museum and where we would set up equipment. James made a map and plotted out where his 16 recording devices would be placed. This allowed for several recorders in each room and every place covered. The husband and wife team set up IR lights and cameras.

Vinnie set up his number generator program. The basis of this experiment is based on global consciousness project. In simple terms, a random number generator throws off random O's and 1's and before major events in the world they have been shown to exhibit statistically unusual combinations of lining up 1's and O's in something that is rare and not so common. Vinnie will not be happy with my simplified explanation, but honest to gosh, if the dude explained it in his techno-speak all your eyes would roll up in the back of your heads like mine do!

Julie brought a Flir thermal imaging camera. Oh yes! I wandered around to get a baseline on the EMF reads and the ambient temperature of the place.

My plan was to get the place used to us. You can't always tell in the "Ghost Lab," "Ghost Hunters" and "Ghost Adventures" shows, but the place is fairly small. I realized we can't go in there all tromping around like the daytime tours. I had all of us congregate on the level where the Black Mariah Hearse is. For those who saw the GH episode, that was the room where when going up the stairs into that room, Jason had his shirt tugged and when they went into the room, they turned and saw the lady in the gown and hat going down the other stairs towards the card room/bordello cribs. Sitting around the table, I sent people off in groups of two to introduce themselves to the building. They walked down into the main room where the stage is and used their names, told a bit about themselves. They wandered down to the gambling area and continued, speaking out loud so the microphones could pick them up, but also so that they could be heard throughout the building.

We lucked out this night. It was a Sunday night at 10-1 and not a soul anywhere and the building is set off from the other buildings, so it was a dream setup, as well as dream temperature since we were power out.

When it came to introducing ourselves, I decided to play up the sassy redhead thing and announced to the male population that I was the new gal and ready to have fun. Buy me a drink! Hope you like redheads! We finished up our introductions and using our names so we were real to them and individuals and sat down at the table and did an EVP session as a group. We often heard sounds and when Julie asked one particular question, we heard things and several of us got a rush of goosebumps and feeling touched. The hearse area had nearly constant strange creaking and popping sounds.

I kept hearing and sensing things downstairs in the game room/bordello. We tried an experiment of isolation and so I went down into the dark narrow room between the gaming tables and the bordello cribs and in the pitch black and goaded the players to get me. I was alone and I was ready for a fella. While down there, I had an overwhelming sense of being watched and studied, then a sense of something moving behind me around in front of me and circling over and over again like it was just observing me. If you ever saw the movie "Silence of the Lambs," it was just like that scene near the end when Jodie Foster's character is in the dark and the killer is wearing nightvision goggles staring at her close by.

We broke off into groups of two in the three rooms and called out our questions taking turns with one question from each of the three levels of the place. During this time, some groups heard voices and at one point James and I were in the gift shop where he felt a cold spot. I came over and pulled out my thermometer and my EMF meter and saw a spike in the EMF, not significant, but a spike. As well, the ambient temperature was 71 there. Then, within a few minutes, it went back to the 86 that was the baseline in the room.

Next, we sat down and I announced our desire to bring the woman apparition forth. We all stared at and focused our cameras on the staircase. This was a attempt at focused attention of a group on a purpose to see if we could will her to show up. During this time, my entire body broke out into horrible goosebumps and deep chills and then it went away. We heard and felt some things, but no apparition showed itself.

Lastly, we broke off into groups again. We would wait outside while a group of 2 went in and had the place to themselves for a time. This is where adapting to a situation uniquely is important. We realized the place seemed to prefer smaller doses of people. Groups reported hearing voices and footsteps, some of the footsteps extremely distinct and purposeful. When my group went in as the last group, we heard voices. I heard many voices all over the place including some that sounded like conversation and, at one point down in the gaming area/bordello cribs, we all heard very clearly a man right near us that made a weird sort of response/groan.

It may not seem like a lot of stuff going on, but as James analyzes the recordings, I have no doubt at all that the EVPs will be amazing. We were hearing it with our own ears, but we know there were answers we didn't hear. I will present those when they come out, as well as all other evidence as people gather their stuff and send it in to me.

On a level of 1-5 for haunting that particular night with 5 being like the night Ghost Hunters was there, I'd give this night a high 3. Once the evidence comes in, we will probably nudge that one up!

All in all, one of my top hunt goals came to be. I am thrilled to get to hunt there and to be able to manage the hunt and help to direct its course, adapt and try new things. Unlike some ghost hunting groups (we know which one on TV), we are open to the adapting to each situation individually, as there is no McDonald's assembly line of hauntings though some teams like to mass produce with the same techniques over and over again.