Villisca Axe Murder House-Villisca, IA April 2008
Our first investigation of the JB Moore home in Villisca, IA was amazing. Darwin and Martha were great hosts and welcomed the Nightwatchers crew into there home. Darwin (who has to be one of the great american story tellers) spent about 40 mintues talking to us about he history of the house, the families involved, and the wild events that took place after the murders. He also told us about all of the reported hauntings and used a crystal pendulum to talk with spirits in the house. Martha even told us about her personal experiences in the house. Jason had the big toe on his right foot grabbed by an unseen hand comming from under the bed in the parents bedroom and less than 2 minutes later JulieV (Nightwatch Radio) was poked in her side. The night was filled with alot of doors opening and shutting, a lot of unexplained noises. Unfortunately none were caught on camera. We did catch one great EVP in the attic (see "there not gonna help you" in the EVP section of the website). The digital recorder was left in the attic alone for over an hour. About 38 minutes after the recording starts you hear a voice and a loud bang. No doors were being shut anywhere else at the time and noone was in the attic.
Allthough we did not catch any concrete evidence on this trip, we did have a few personal experiences. The house is amazing and we will return in the future.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THE VILLISCA AXE MURDERS AND THE JB MOORE HOUSE PLEASE CHECK THE LINK IN THE FREINDS SECTION OF OUR WEBSITE.
Squirrel Cage Jail- Council Bluffs, IA -- August 2008
The Squirrel Cage Jail opened their doors to us on August 8th. After a brief tour and lesson on the history of the jail we were given full reign of the house. We, unfortunately, only had one experience at the jail. At around 12:45 am about 8 of us were standing in the bullpen and heard a loud scream comming from what seemed to be one of the upper cells in the jail. We all heard this, but strangely enough it was not caught on video or audio recordings. We are not sure what to think of this sound. Could it be the tormented soul of a prisoner? Or the sound of someone outside the jail who is very much alive? We may never know! We also caught some interesting light anomolies with our digital camera. I am not sure what to think of them but you can see the pictures on our photo page.
We look forward to returning to the jail in the future and want to thank the Pottawatamie Historical Society for letting us investigate at their jail, and a special thank you to Connie with the Historical Society for all of her help!
Mystery Manor- Omaha, NE -- August 2008
We were lucky enough to investigate the oldest haunted house in Omaha with our freinds from Nightwatchers LLC. and Nevermore Paranormal. The Mystery Manor is located in North Downtown Omaha right in the middle of Creighton University's campus. The manor has quite a long history. If has been a residence, apartments, a bordello, a turburculosis hospital, and for the last 25 years is has stood as the pinicle of halloween attractions in the Omaha area. The has a history of pain and sorrow and close to 100 years of standing in a historic part of town make it a perfect location for paranormal activity.
After a breif tour of the house we started investigating. We quickly noticed that it is extremely hard in investigate a commercial haunted house. Twisting tunnels, scarry faces, mirrors, and and other factors make it nearly impossible to hear where a sound is comming from and if a shadow is pranormal or just a shadow. 3 floors, and 2 slides of an environment set up to scare make you question everything you hear and see.
Personally we had no personal experiences. Maybe we were just too tired from our investigation the night before, or we were just unlucky that night. We hope that we can return to the Mystery Manor and maybe catch the spirits that are reported to haunt the employees and guests on a regular basis..
Villisca Axe Murder House (The Return)- October 2008
We returned for a second visit with the Nightwatchers Crew to the Villisca Axe Murder house on Oct 10th. The night would prove to be amazing! Quite frankly we could dedicate an entire page to all of the personal experiences that the 8 of us experienced that night. The evening got off to a start with the shade on the door falling during Darwin's story. This was preceded by one of the investigators getting touched on her shoulder. PARNORMAL? Probably not... but it was a sign of things to come later. While using dowsing rods Todd sheets had the rods heat up so much that it burned his hands and he had to drop them. We constanly heard steps on the ceiling above us while investigating in the parlor room. When we asked if the girls wanted to play hide and seek we got a EVP response of "lets go in the kitchen and hide" (SEE EVPS). When we went upstairs we investigated the famous closet door that opens on its own. Their seems to be a breeze comming from a hole in the roof of the closet, and this could lead to some of the occurances where the door barely opens. We did however have the door open completely and shut on its own. I think that in this case it could be a combination or normal and paranormal. The attic seemed to be the most active place for our group. Todd and Julie witnessed a shadow figure the seemed to rise out of the floor of the attic. When Julie attempted to photograph the figure it attacked her, pulling her hair. This was visible to Todd and he waved his hand over her pulled hair (while it was standing up) to make sure it was not catching on the roof. They decided to leave the attic at that point and aftger hearing them and listening to their stories Hugh and I entered hoping to either debunk or experience something too. A few minutes later we tried to let another investigator come in the attic only to find out that we had been locked in?? We figured it was done on accident by someone or maybe someone trying to be funny. We closed the door again and went back to working on EVPS and everyone else went back downstairs and outside for a break. About 20 minutes later we heard a ruckess down stairs and Julie walked to the top of the stairs and said something was happening and to come down. The door was locked again! (Later that night I tried to debunk this by slamming the door, and shutting it at different speeds. I also checked the slide lock carefully. I was unable to figure out how this door locked on its own.) When we were let out of the attic I started to walk down the stairs and heard something behind me, as a turned to see what was behind me I felt a push on the back of my legs. The push was hard enough to knock me down (I had trouble walking for over a week!). Please check out the video page of the site for some awesome evidence Todd Sheets caught in the "blue room"!
Around 4 in the morning their were only about 4 people left in the house. We were sitting talking and basically trying to stay awake. We left our video camera upstairs to film by itself. We constantly heard whispers. One says, "stop looking!" very clearly. We also caught the sound of footsteps and the doors opening and shutting. (THESE VIDEO CLIPS WILL BE ADDED SHORTLY). We were all sitting downstairs and heard/felt a loud bang comming from upstairs. This bang was so hard that we could feel it vibrate the furniture we were sitting in. Immediately after that sound the enitire atmposphere in the house became very dark and scary. We all had the feeling that SOMETHING WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. We all felt the need to "leave right now" but for some reason we could not. I felt sick to my stomach and felt like I was going to have to run outside and vomit. We eventually got the nerve to go upstairs to pick up the equipment, but noticed that the doors to the Barn (upper and lower) were now WIDE OPEN. These doors were shut all night and are very tight, so it is doubtful that wind caused them to open. When we got upstairs their was an overwhelming smell of urine in both rooms. We picked up our things and left as soon as we could. The sickness I felt did not subside untill we reached Red Oak (about 15 miles away).
What was going on that night? Who/what was there? Was it paranormal? I have my theories... but I will let the video, evp, and personal experiences speak for themselves. I would love to hear your ideas and/or if you have had similar experiences at the house.
Many paranormal groups are skipping this awesome haunt because it is "so overdone" and "obviously haunted". I have to dissagree. This is a great location, you are hosted by genuinely nice people, and if you want to have an experience THIS IS THE PLACE.
LASTLY, if you are interested in visiting this house please contact them via their website. They are extremely eager to open their doors to visitors so just ask and set up a time. We were saddened to hear that someone broke into the house about 2 weeks before our visit and messed the place up. Even if you do not beleive in the paranormal and can value this house for its potential in that respect, remember this is the site where 8 innocent people were killed. PLEASE TREAT IT AND ITS INHABITANTS with respect.
Mystery Manor (Nightmare Before Christmas Inevestigation)- November 2008
Our second visit to Mystery Manor was awesome. We started the night waiting in the cold for a chance to experience a Christmas themed haunted house. Hard to imagine, but it works. I would reccomend that you check it out next year, and by doing so you will be helping a very worth charity Matt's Dream (http://www.mattsdream.org/css/index.php). After 30 minutes of ducking, crawling, jumping, and sliding through the Manor we were primed and ready to invesigate.
We started in a room that I can only describe as the "uneven room". We all sat down and started and evp and dowsing rod session. We heard lots of knocks and the sound of door springs opening and closing. At one point we all heard a giggle comming from a wall behind us, as we were asking for it to happen again it did. This was caught on our recorder and you can hear it on our EVP page. Todd Sheets and I moved into the hallway that we heard the giggle and continued to hear knocks and springs. At one point Todds, glow in the dark braclet was blocked out numerous times by "a shadow". And at this point we heard noises between us.
Later in the night I had an awesome personal experience in one of the hallways. Todd, Hugh, Callea and I were sitting and working on an EVP session. A cell senor in Todd's hand started to flash and kept flashing for close to 20 mins. This had never happened before. In fact Amy was questioning if it was broke because it never did anything!! At one point a black shadow that seemed to be close to 6 foot tall was standing between Todd and Jason. It was so dark that it blocked out the red light from the cell sensor. Jason stuck his hand into the shadow and it seemed to dissappear. We continued to get cold blasts of air (with no breeze) and sounds. At one point the sounds seemed to coincide with the cold spots. After about 20 minutes of flashing the cell sensor tried to jump out of Todds hands numerous times. Callea then told whatever was pulling on the cell sensor to, "stop messing around and just knock it out of his hand!". The spirit was obviously upset by this challenge because about a minute later it flew out of his hand, slammed against the wall, and crashed to the floor.
Later that night while we were conducting an evp session in the office, the staff of the Mystery Manor was sitting in the makeup room and saw a bag and chair move. We were not present to see this, but it just adds to one awesome night!
After our first visit to Mystery Manor I really doubted if there was anything paranormal going on at all in the house. As nice as the guys and gals are down there I questioned if the paranormal stories were a story to drum up buisness. I now know that these guys are not only genuinely nice guys, but they (in my opinion) have a geuinley haunted house. We look forward to working with the Mystery Manor in the future, and are anxiously awaiting our next invite to investigate!
Glore Psyciatric Museum- St. Joseph, MO, December 2008
Although we only had about 4 hours to investigate, it was an honour to visit Glore Psychiatric Museum. If you are ever driving through St. Joseph, MO and need a nice break from the road stop by for a tour. The former lunatic asylum, and now museum/correctional facility is located less that a mile off I-29 and is an amazing collection of artefacts documenting the history of the asylum and mental health treatments from the past. I would also recommend visiting the graveyard that is filled with headstones and pieces of headstones that were simply numbered for the patients that died at the facility.
We did not have any personal experiences at the museum, and left with the feeling that we only visited a cool museum. When we reviewed our evidence it turned out to be quite the opposite. We caught some truly amazing EVPS. In one EVP, two of our female investigators where alone on the second floor discussing how inactive the floor felt and how they felt sick on another floor (hence the great throw up sound when you listen to it LOL) when you hear 2 male spirits actually debating who should scare the girls and how. The conversation goes like this:
Male 1: Go ahead and scare em
Male 2: You, go ahead, go over there and scare em
Male 1: I’ll just stand here and go ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
Female Investigator asks what time is it
Male 1: F—k it lets go back.
This EVP brought up a lot of questions to our team and very few answers..... Do spirits interact with each other? What did they mean by "go back”.. Where were they coming FROM? They obviously know how to manipulate their energy to be able to be around the girls undetected and then change it to scare them…Is it true for all spirits?? Amanda, from the Nightwatchers Kansas City Chapter, also caught some very interesting photos. After gathering the evidence I think many of us would agree that Glore is definitely worth another visit.
