I get more techincal in my recording techniques

Up until now I've been using my trusty Sony ICD-B600. It's a digital recorder, but has no way to offload the recordings. So my process for analysis of a night recording is as follows:

1) Plug in a pair of headphones and listen to the entire recording
2) Clip out parts that are of interest
3) Record the clips via Line In to my computer into Audacity.
4) Listen again to the clip to see if it's something worthwhile.
5) If so, export to MP3 and upload to the blog.

The Sony is not very good at playback - even with the volume turned up all the way and wearing a set of "cans" I have to be in a quiet room to really hear faint noises. At work, with many co-workers around me, this can prove difficult.

A year ago for Christmas I got a Sansa e280 mp3 player so I could have something to listen to whilst I work out. A week ago I replaced the "operating system" of the device with an open-source software package called Rockbox. After going through it's features I had an epiphany: the mp3 player had recording capability, and also had some things I was desperately needing.

A friend on Facebook suggested a while ago that I should go digital completely, and have the computer look for anomalies in the recording. Most of the things that occur barely register a spike, so I would be problematic to write software that wouldn't miss important things - nay, I'll still have to listen to the recording and let my ears pick up the telltale whisper or voice. But going digital does have some added benefits.

For one, Rockbox has some excellent settings for the recorder, mainly the ability to turn up the gain for the mike. This would allow me to record very faint sounds in the house, and allow me to pick up things like the whisper a lot better.

Secondly, the device is also a USB hard drive, so the recordings can be copied off of it to my desktop's hard drive. From there I can load the entire recording into Audacity, amp the volume, and listen with as much gain as I need. Tre chic!

Three Knocks at the front door

Yesterday evening, Holly and I had the house to ourselves. Sarah was at work, and the other two were spending the night at respective friend's houses.

Holly and I sat at the island in the kitchen. We had opened a bottle of Shiraz and were sitting down just talking and enjoying each other's company. There were three soft knocks at the door. I heard them. Holly did not. But all the dogs did. They raced towards to the door, barking, and jostling for the best position.

The knocks were very faint, almost as if the knocker did not want to perform the action, and for some reason, I knew already there no one was going to be at the door.

Holly got up from the island, and walked to the door. There was no one there.

I record a segment for the Anything Ghost Podcast

Back in August 2009, I recorded a segment for the Anything Ghost Podcast #96.

I found myself rambling a bit too much in the beginning, but the EVP I provided was pretty popular afterwards. I planned on recording more segments for the show, but never got around to it.

The EVP was from the first night of recordning, where I picked up that strange girl talking in another language.

Holly sees the little girl run up our stairs

This morning Holly and I were in the kitchen making breakfast. All the kids were just sent upstairs for being annoying. Ten minutes later Holly asked me, "Did one of the kids just go upstairs?"

I had not heard anything, and told Holly as much. Normally a teenage girl going quickly up the stairs sounds like a herd of elephants charging. I went to the landing of the stairs and looked up. All the girls were in their respective rooms with the doors shut.

I asked Holly what was going on.

"I just saw a little girl dressed in white run up the stairs."

Nice. This is the second sighting of this little girl is less than thirty days. Shelby saw this same girl on the stairway landing last month.

More New Windsor history

While doing some research of paranormal activity on Google, I came across more history from the Weird in Maryland blog from this post.

I live in New Windsor, MD, which is a typical small, Carroll County town that was a far busier place 100 years ago. There are a handful of small businesses along Main Street, but generally it's mostly a residential area now. We do however now have a small museum, located in one of the oldest houses in town, and rumor has it, we have a few ghosts. Back in the fall of 2006, just before the museum opened to the public, the local history group, the New Windsor Heritage Committee, invited a paranormal investigator to speak with the group. She was from the Gettysburg area and had spend some time a few days taking pictures in the old graveyard right behind the museum.

She told us during the meeting that she had detected a young girl's spirit in the upstairs, and had felt several other presences as well. And the photos she showed us from her trip to the graveyard were jam-packed with orbs.

If any house in town deserves to be haunted though, it's probably the Bloom House down by the railroad tracks, built in the late 1800's. Adam Bloom and his young family moved in to the house in 1890 and he opened a creamery nearby, which was, apparently, quite successful. His oldest daughters attended private school in town and life proceeded on an even keel. But several years later, Adam grew more and more despondent and his daughter Estelle later claimed that he had been heavily influenced by a traveling missionary who convinced him of his own sinful nature. Whatever the reasons, on May 20, 1898, Adam shot himself in his workshop and took quite a few hours to finally die of his wounds, no doubt in a great deal of pain. Local historian, R. Bryce Workman, has written a small book, available at the New Windsor Museum, detailing the life of Estelle (Stella) Bloom and her sister Marion, both of whom had become involved with very prominent writers during their lives, in and around our sleepy little town. At the end, though, Estelle died alone in the old family home, having suffered the ravages of both cancer and too much alcohol.

Also This Haunted Place has a blog entry about New Windsor history.

I was reading an article recently that mentioned that areas with high amounts of limestone may be more prone to paranormal activity. If so, perhaps that explains some of the more interesting features of the little town of New Windsor, Maryland. Apparently some of the purest limestone deposits on the East Coast reside below the surface surrounding this little town.

Near the center of the little town lies the old Presbyterian cemetery, final home to many of the earliest inhabitants of the area. In the south-western corner of the yard can be found the grave of noted physician Roberts Bartholow. Bartholow was born in 1831 in Carroll County and obtained his bachelor’s degree in Arts from New Windsor’s own Calvert College. He then went to the University of Maryland to pursue his medical studies. Having entered practice in 1852 and serving as a US Army Surgeon until 1864, he settled in Ohio on the staff of Good Samaritan Hospital in Cincinatti. It was here in 1874 that he first met Mary Rafferty, a ‘feeble-minded’ young servant girl with an ulcerated cancer of the brain. After treating Rafferty unsuccessfully for about a month, Dr. Bartholow decided to try some experiments with electric stimulation of her brain, as he had already determined that her case was hopeless. The experiments went on over the course of several days -as Rafferty did not appear to be in pain with low intensities of current, Bartholow increased the charge until Rafferty ultimately entered a coma that lasted about 20 minutes. She died several days later and though her death was listed as being caused by the cancer, the scarring from Bartholow’s experiments no doubt hastened the end. Bartholow ’s techniques were censured heavily at the time, even in that time of little or no concept of patient consent, but had little long term effect on his career. He died in 1904 and was buried near his parents in New Windsor.

So much for the background story. Several years, the local heritage group invited a paranormal investigator to town. Armed with an array of equipment, she was able to determine that the old graveyard was quite an active place, including the spirits of several Confederate soldiers were were none too happy to be buried on top of each other at the eastern end of the graveyard. Her strongest impression, however, came as she drew near to Bartholow’s stone and noted an almost violent energy coming toward her. Apparently, he was telling here over and over again, “they didn’t understand, they just didn’t understand.”

I absolutely find it incredible that there is so much history in this town.

Night Recordings from May 15, 2008

Date Recorded: May 15, 2008.

Analysis Started: 11/10/2008 4:02pm
Analysis Completed: 1/05/2009 1:34pm
Location: Master Bedroom
Filter: Noise Removal

Clip #1, 12:06 am, 0'18''
0:05: A small child's voice
0:13: A loud knock

Clip #1, 1:23 am, 0'14''
0:05: A small child's voice
0:08: A small child's voice again

Night Recordings from October 23, 2008

Date Recorded: October 10, 2008.

Analysis Started: 10/30/2008 10:06am
Analysis Completed: 11/10/2008 4:00pm
Location: Shelby's Bedroom
Filter: Noise Removal

A lot of noises seem to come from Shelby's room, which shares a wall with my bedroom. There has also been activity in the past in her room, as documents in earlier blog entries.

I decided on this night to place the recorder in her room for the first time. Note that both clips have a clock, so you will hear its ticking throughout.

Clip #1, 12:03 am, 0'09''
Three quick knocks.

Clip #2, 12:08 am, 1'25''
Some taps , then a girl hums. The guys at Haunted New Jersey (whose podcasts I listen to) suggest that more often than not EVPs are precluded by some sort of tap or knock. No one knows why yet.

0:06 A loud tap
0:10-0:25 Shelby, possibly woken up by the tap, stirs and rolls over.
0:40 Another tap
1:09 A girl hums
1:15 A girl hums again