Paranormal State: My Journey into the Unknown (17 page)

With the emotional aspects clearer, I turned to a closer look at the phenomena. The most common activity was the sound of footsteps in the attic. The house was over two hundred years old, and no one had been up there in years. We decided to take a look.

When Peter opened up the entrance for us, insulation came down like snow. It was one of those places investigating takes you that you have to think twice about. The whole team put on masks, climbed on up, and found ourselves ankle-deep in dust and insulation. As we walked, it flew into the air, glowing in our flashlight beams. Even with the face mask, I ended up coughing pretty badly.

Serg spotted a little area of light in one corner, but it turned out to be a light shining up from Ally’s room. There was no animal smell or evidence of nests, so we eliminated some possible explanations for the sounds. Otherwise, nothing.

Beneath the house, though, there were two sealed-up tunnels. One, mostly collapsed, ran under the kitchen all the way to an old barn. The other, short and filthy but more intact, ran beneath the parents’ bedroom. It was a tricky, awkward space to investigate, but I felt there might be something in the tunnel that could connect us to the history of the house and possibly the haunting.

I’d seen robot cameras on television documentaries used for everything from exploring sealed rooms in the pyramids to hunting for alligators in sewer systems. PRS couldn’t afford anything like that, but I thought we could do something similar by getting a remote-controlled toy car, sticking a camera on it, and sending it into the tunnel.

It didn’t work. The car kept getting stuck, and the picture kept blanking out.

Instead, I went in myself. The tunnel was a crawl space, the entrance about five feet off the basement floor. I stood on a chair and jumped in. The tunnel’s floor was dirt, its ceiling the wooden floor of the house. It was a tight space, and, worse, there were enough spider webs to get my arachnophobia going. I did manage to stay long enough to find an old-fashioned hat, a tin cup, and some old newspapers.

Shortly afterward in the episode we examine an old photo. Over the years the families living there discovered these things, and collected what they found. The items were kept and passed along to the new owners. There was even a handwritten letter by someone who’d worked with Abraham Lincoln.

Most interesting was a very old photo of an unidentified couple. The image wasn’t on paper; it was on thin metal, which meant it might have been what’s called a daguerreotype—an early photographic process. Daguerreotypes were invented and used around the middle of the nineteenth century, the time of the Underground Railroad. So it was very possible that this was an image of whoever lived in the house back then. That meant it could be a photo of our apparition.

It was exciting to hold that kind of relic. Historical research has always been one of the best ways to uncover the reasons for a haunting and here was a situation begging for it. It was a great opportunity to inject that process into the show, and something we’d do much more in later episodes.

Attempting to identify the couple in the photo, we headed to Pittsburgh and visited John Ford at the Heinz History Center. An authority on the Underground Railroad, as well as a curator for an exhibit on the subject, he’d been collecting similar artifacts for years. With his help, some of the puzzle pieces began to fit together. He confirmed that the photo was mid–nineteenth century, and he shared some of the history from that period. Meanwhile, Eilfie, researching the clothing the couple wore, concluded that it was also consistent with the period.

The Underground Railroad, of course, wasn’t an actual railroad. It was a series of safe houses and secret routes used to help escaped slaves. Some wanted to reach free states; others headed farther north to Canada, down south to Mexico, or overseas. Over the years of its existence, it helped roughly thirty thousand slaves reach freedom.

Pennsylvania had been a free state since 1780. At the time of the railroad’s height, between 1810 and 1850, there were already a number of strong African American communities there, so it wasn’t unusual for Pennsylvanians to be sympathetic to runaway slaves.

As for our case, things were opening up. With Mr. Ford’s help, a search of the property records turned up the names of the home’s original owners: Jacob and Jane Anne Witzel. With confirmed names to investigate, I quickly learned that Jane Anne Witzel had been active in the Highlands Presbyterian Church. According to Mr. Ford, that increased the likelihood that the Witzels were abolitionists involved in the railroad. Not only that, we confirmed that the house was near an Underground Railroad route coming up from West Virginia.

Given the location, the owners, the tunnels, and the timing, it seemed likely that not only was the house used to hide runaway slaves, but also that the photo was of the original owners, the Witzels. Frustratingly often, our research efforts lead nowhere, as was the case with the urn from “The Cemetery,” but here the pieces fit. Historical evidence is an unbelievably useful method of paranormal investigation. If you can sift through the dust of yesterday to see how things evolved, you can look for signs, clues, or patterns. Finding out that there was an untimely death in the house, or a fire, gives us hints about where else to look. In this case, thanks to the Heinz Center, we had a lot of facts piling up that were very useful.

If this was a photo of the Witzels, we could use it to try to identify the apparition. Though the photo had been in the house, according to the Sokolowskis, Larry had never seen it. From what I saw, it hadn’t been hanging on the wall or kept anywhere visible. It was stored in a tin box that they had some trouble digging out.

We gathered some other photos of people from the same time period, and showed them all to Larry. When I asked if he recognized anyone, in short order he pointed out the image we believed was Jane. This, he said, looked like the woman in the window. For us, this was very important evidence, just like the moment where Matthew picked out Timothy in a photo lineup in the “Sixth Sense” case. I can understand why some people don’t see this as amazing as say, an EVP, but for us, this is just as big, if not bigger. If a client is able to pick out the photograph of a family they’ve never seen alive, that has been verified as having once lived in the house, and they’re convinced “this is who I saw,” it’s a huge piece of evidence arguing for the existence of ghosts. This young man clearly saw something, and he said it looked exactly like Jane Anne Witzel.

From everything we gathered about the case, from historical investigation, testimony, paranormal investigation, and psychic walk-throughs, Jacob and Jane Anne Witzel fit the profile of the spiritual personalities to a T. It all seemed to add up.

Is this absolute proof? No. But, given the awkward relationship Ally’s parents had with Larry, I don’t envision them sitting around looking at antique pictures together. To me, it made more sense to believe he’d actually seen Jane Witzel.

Having taken the research as far as it could go, I agreed to bring in psychic CJ Sellers, whom I’d worked with in “Dark Man.” In this episode you can see why she’d earned my respect.

To the best of my knowledge, CJ didn’t know anything about the house. Yet when she entered, she didn’t throw out millions of bits of information hoping to get something right. She was drawn immediately to Ally’s bedroom. There, she sensed a couple, specifically a female who was old-fashioned, churchgoing, and proper. This spirit, she felt, disapproved of two people living together without being married. Even so, the energy didn’t feel negative to CJ. It felt warm, protective.

Interestingly, the spirits didn’t feel trapped or want to do any damage. According to CJ, they wanted to stay on in the house, and coexist peacefully with the new family.

At the end of the psychic walk-through, I showed CJ the photos we’d shown Larry. She likewise pointed out Jane Witzel, saying it felt like this was the spirit she was in touch with.

In a profession where hard proof is hard to come by, we were doing pretty well.

Afterward, CJ sat down with Larry and Ally. I thought she did a great job not coming across as judgmental while expressing the attitude she was getting from the spirits. For their part, Larry and Ally understood that the disapproval and concern from the spirits were based on hundred-and-fifty-year-old values.

I also want to briefly mention the “lives of the investigators” subplot for this episode. This one involved Katrina talking to Heather about intuitions and dreams she’d had that sometimes came true. The producers thought it’d be interesting to have her speak with CJ about them. CJ explains, basically, that like any muscle or talent, it was an aspect of her that could get stronger if Katrina decided to exercise it.

Katrina’s interest in developing her psychic ability was something I kept a close watch on. To be honest, I had no desire to have a permanent psychic on my team. In the past, it’s led to bad situations in PRS. Alleged psychic testimony can bias the rest of the team’s viewpoint so much that we have a policy in place that does not allow any investigator to knowingly use any psychic talents on a case without written consent.

This isn’t just my thought process. Sergey, Josh, and Eilfie also have hesitations about the use of psychics. As for the psychics we use on the show, they’re called in, they give their reading and then they leave. Far be it for me to stop someone from pursuing a potential talent, but I didn’t want that issue mitigating the team’s objectivity. That said, I think Katrina did a great job trying to find that balance her first year in PRS.

Meanwhile, since the research had worked out so well, we went into Dead Time with a very solid theory. One aspect that didn’t make it into the final cut was that, aside from Larry, two African Americans were present. To test the family’s theory that the apparition only appeared to African Americans, I’d brought in John Ford and an old friend of mine, V. J. Cox, who lived in Pittsburgh at the time.

As we tried to contact the Witzels, just like back at Schwab Auditorium, we had battery problems. Flashlights were dying out for no apparent reason. Some people think this is hyped, but our crew is a group of seasoned TV production people. It’s second nature to them to keep things charged and ready.

As far as it being evidence of a presence, part of the problem is that you never really know
when
the battery’s being drained. If it’s fully charged and some paranormal activity drains it to 80 percent, the battery still lasts thirty minutes. All we do know is that at certain times and in certain places, batteries don’t last as long as they should. Why? One theory is that the spirits use the energy themselves, the same way they use the emotional energies of the clients.

I’m not saying that a bunch of nineteenth-century spirits are taking out their straws to sip on battery acid. They probably aren’t even aware that they are affecting our machinery. Nonetheless, whatever elements make up a spirit, it seems that they pull from electrical currents in a big way. Think about it. The spirits don’t have a body. How are they supposed to manifest and move objects? They need some sort of fuel just as we humans need to consume oxygen and food for energy. Perhaps spirits have unknowingly learned to adapt, now using our technology as a way to feed in order to manifest?

During Dead Time, V. J. became very emotional and claimed he felt a spirit move through him. John Ford, on the other hand, didn’t have any unusual experiences.

There is a moment in the episode where I say, “I’m getting chills.” It may seem that this is the result of some activity, but the truth is a bit embarrassing. It was late, it was really warm, and CJ has this incredibly soothing, nonconfrontational way. She was very relaxing to listen to. So, I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on contacting the spirits, but fell asleep.

Everyone tells me my head just fell forward. To me it felt like I was out for a second, but apparently I was out for a good minute. To make matters even worse, apparently I started snoring. It was definitely not one of my finest moments. As I shook myself awake, I got chills from my sleepy limbs. Nothing paranormal there.

The most exciting thing about Dead Time nearly slipped by me completely. After a lack of activity in Ally’s room, we relocated to the master bedroom. As CJ and I attempted communication, suddenly we heard an old-fashioned telephone ringing from somewhere in the dark house. At first I rolled my eyes. “Someone in production forgot to turn their cell phone off.” As we continued to learn and adapt around each other, one thing I was trying to get them into the habit of was turning off their cell phones. This was only the fourth investigation; there was still a learning curve.

After we called off Dead Time, I walked down the stairs to meet Eilfie and one of the producers. “Hey, who left their cell phone on?” I asked the producer, Alan.

“No one. We thought maybe it was you guys. We were trying to look for that noise.”

Eilfie and I looked at each other. “Well, I was with the other team and it wasn’t us,” she said. I obviously knew that it wasn’t us. Suddenly, Eilfie and I ran off excitedly, trying to see if we could find the source of the telephone. Since we were on opposite locations of the house, we pinpointed it as directly above the first-floor kitchen. We tried calling their house phone and other cell phone numbers. The sound was not heard again. Despite all of us combing the house for an old-fashioned telephone, we didn’t find one. Ironically, though, there is some significant decoration of an old-fashioned telephone throughout the house curve.