On a recent investigation, I learned a valuable lesson, the importance of a bulletproof equipment setup. The location is a house in Northwest Ohio that was built in the 1800’s and has a long history of being the town’s center of activity. We have investigated it several times and there are documented murders that have happened there. It was a brothel, hotel, stagecoach stop, dance club and much more throughout it’s history.
The team I was working with was conducting a session in the owner’s daughter’s bedroom where activity seemed to be frequent. I like to step back a little bit from sessions and get a feel for the rest of the house as the team investigates a certain area. I was standing in the doorway with my back to the hallway and paying more attention to what was going on outside the room. Then I heard something. Clear as day, I heard someone walking, either on the floor above me or below me. I could not tell which. I immediately called out to see if anyone had come into the house and no one replied. There is a bell on the door to alert people if anyone enters and that did not go off. I could not wait to get home and go over the data from the equipment I had set up.
Without getting too geeky, here is the short version of the equipment we had set up. We used seven DVR cameras, four of which had audio. I also love my Zoom H6 recorder with XLR microphone inputs. That is twelve pieces of equipment alone to analyze, not including the handheld devices in use at the time as well.
I started analyzing the equipment I had set up on the first floor, which consisted of one DVR camera with audio and two tracks on the Zoom recorder and came up empty handed. I then turned to the second floor equipment, which is where the session was taking place and caught the footsteps faintly on the DVR camera and zoom mic that I had in the second floor hallway. I was getting closer. I then went to the third floor DVR camera that was placed in a balcony that overlooked the former ballroom of the location and the footsteps were loud on that device. Then I listened to the zoom microphone that I had placed in the ballroom and that was it, that is where the footsteps came from. In my head, I imagined an old cowboy looking figure walking through the ballroom, heavy footed. There was one more piece of equipment to look at, the camera in the ballroom. At this point, I knew the timestamp that I was looking for and fully expected to see a full body apparition walk in front of the camera. I was so excited. It’s coming, here it is…….the gas heater kicks on. It makes some noises that sound identical to footsteps as it kicks on, I was so disappointed.
The positive about this experience is knowing that I had debunked something, that if I had not looked at everything or had not taken the time to do a proper set up, I would have passed that along to the owner as evidence that something walked through his ballroom. I had audio from multiple sources that I would have played for him.
Here are the lessons I learned from that night. First, always take the time you need and not the time you have to set up enough equipment to properly surveil the location you are investigating. The interview process took longer than it should have and cut into my setup time. Because of that I thought about scrapping some of my equipment placement as the investigators were giving me dirty looks to finish setting up. I stuck with my guns and did it my way.
Second lesson, review everything. I could have stopped at the multiple recordings I had of the footsteps and passed that along to the homeowner as evidence and he would have thought, “Omg, we’ve got a ghost in our ballroom”. The kids in the house could have potentially been more scared than what they were already. It is extremely important to not add to the paranoia that is already taking place. This particular house yielded multiple pieces of “evidence” that I debunked because of a good solid setup.
There is a video of this process on Boo Productions Paranormal on YouTube, titled “How to setup equipment for a paranormal investigation”. In this video you will hear and see the camera and microphone placements and the debunking process.
About Jeff Schlachter: Jeff Schlachter is the founder of Boo Productions Paranormal. He has been involved in the paranormal for about six years, with experience investigating historical buildings with paranormal claims and several private homes where people genuinely need help. Jeff recently joined the Warren Legacy Foundation to submit his experiences and learn from the other members and leadership. He enjoys sharing a good ghost story, but it is all about helping people at the end of the day. Boo Productions Paranormal has had great success in helping people solve their paranormal problems or direct them to professionals that can. Additionally, he enjoys educating people about history by luring them in with a ghost story.
