I’m sitting in the dark master bedroom of the Martin home, waiting for something to happen. According to the owner of this residence, it was in this very room that the most dramatic of ghostly events took place.
After enduring several months of almost constant paranormal activity in the home (to include objects flying across several rooms, mysterious disembodied voices speaking from thin air, and unpleasant scents suddenly appearing), it had all come to a head one evening in this very bedroom—and ended with the family forever closing off the area. And now they did not venture into this space for fear of what might happen to them.
Looking around, I could see several more pragmatic reasons for not entering the bedroom; the entire floor was covered in a massive layer of dirty clothing, books, papers, junk, etc. Items that the owner claimed were strewn about by the “entities” that now resided there in the home with her family.
So now I’m perched on the remains of a bed frame straining to hear anything that might indicate something paranormal is about to occur. Joining me in this vigil are four members of a Mississippi ghost hunting group that I have worked with in the past. They had already spent one terrifying evening in the residence before giving me a call the day earlier. Wanting a second opinion concerning the strange happenings that were unfolding at this property, they had called me in to have a go at investigating the place for myself. And, having heard the tale that they told me about their experiences in the home, I immediately made the trip down into the Mississippi delta.
Once I arrived at the scene, though, it became apparent that there was more going on than a simple haunting. The woman of the house—I’ll call her “Joanne Martin”—was, at first glance, the living definition of … well, let’s say “eccentric.” Decked out in a floral muumuu, she greeted us at the door with a toothless smile and a quick wave into what looked like ground zero of a massive explosion. As mentioned before, common household goods and clothes lay all about the double-wide trailer (Did I mention the residence was a trailer?), and a heavy blanket hung over the entryway of the now shunned master bedroom. If a ghost had done all this, I certainly dreaded running into it.
Now, sitting here in the dark of the night, I had to admit that there was a certain pall in the air—that feeling you get when you walk into a room just after a heated argument. Terri, a female investigator from the area, and I began rattling off a series of typical EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) questions as the rest of her team made their way through the property, attempting to obtain photographic and video evidence of the activity that is said to happen on a regular basis.
EVPs are thought to be the voices of the dead captured by audio recorders. Normally, these voices are not heard by the investigators when they are recorded live, but it’s standard practice to ask questions anyway with the hope of getting something that will be heard later when the recordings are reviewed. We had been at it for about an hour and I was just suppressing a yawn when I asked aloud, “How long have you been here in this house?”
After a brief pause, a surprising—and alarming—sound echoed throughout the trailer. A sound that now sent the investigation spinning off into a brand new arena: one of sudden belief and possibility. A long, loud rumble tore through the bedroom, shaking the very walls around us. This was an event that Joanne had reported happening there in the past—and it usually preceded a whole string of paranormal activity that most would either label as being “poltergeist” in origin or a type of “demonic infestation.”
I looked over at Terri who was now sitting in silence, eyes wide and peering into the darkness. “What was that?” I managed to get out …