THE HISTORY
Atop a small hill in a middle class neighborhood stands a two story house built and designed in the 1940s
by a middle aged Caucasian male. Neighbors have reported that he had an unpredictable and strange demeanor.
Some have considered the house as a perfect match for his personality. Records show that the man was married
with three children and died sometime in the 1990s.
The house itself consists of three bedrooms, two baths, and is approximately 1,500 square feet. Some strange
structural facts about the house consist of a small attic door that is blended in with the wall, mismatched
colors on the outside wall, and tile flooring that extends from the inside all the way to the outside driveway.
REPORTED PARANORMAL ACTIVITY
Shortly after the builder died, his family moved out and rented the house to a single parent mother of two.
Neighbors described the family as very messy and did not properly maintain the overall structure of the house.
Paranormal physical contact was documented one night when the daughter of the mother was using the upstairs
bathroom. At approximately 10:30pm, the mother who was downstairs watching television heard her daughter
screaming upstairs. The mother quickly ran upstairs to see what the commotion was about only to find that
her daughter was on the floor of the bathroom. The mother asked why she screamed and the daughter exclaimed
that someone or something, was tugging at her leg. After that night, the family never again stepped onto
the second floor. Eventually, the family of three moved out of the house because of the strange paranormal
activities that they endured over the years. The family also once had seen a black shadow of a man watching
them from the upstairs window when they were in the backyard.
Currently, two men Charles (32 years old) and George (33 years old) live in the San Clemente residence and
share the rent. Charles sleeps in the upstairs bedroom, but is usually out of town for business (this is
why Charles was not present during this investigation).
George stays in the first story and hardly ever goes upstairs. George’s girlfriend Mary (28 years old)
who stays with George is often at the house and was the one who contacted Geist Research. Both George
and his girlfriend have experienced several strange paranormal activities during the two years that they
have lived there. Such activity has included footstep noises coming from the second floor bedroom while
no one was present, disembodied male voices coming from the upstairs bedroom, and kitchen cabinet drawers
discovered opened. Mary noticed that most of the activity occurs when the house is a mess. The two
subjects are convinced that it is the former owner who haunts the place.
THE INVESTIGATION
We focused our investigation mainly on the second floor where most of the paranormal activities has been
reported. Video cameras were set up in the upstairs hallway and in the bedroom facing the bathroom where
the little girl’s legs were supposedly tugged by an invisible force. Voice recorders were placed inside
the upstairs bedroom and in the bathroom. Since most paranormal activity occurred when the house was messy,
we placed a few articles of clothing close to the recorders.
With our equipment set up, we attempted to search for an alternate (not paranormal in nature) explanation
to why the kitchen cabinets would swing open by themselves. We discovered that each cabinet had two springs
that forced the doors to close if they were not opened more than half way. Our results concluded that in
no way can a gust of wind or simple movements of the house prop open the cabinets. We also must add that
the cabinets were never physically witnessed opening by themselves.
At approximately 11:00pm, we investigated the backyard and tested theories on how a black shadow may have
been seen in the second floor window. In our observation we found out that if the blinds were turned at
a certain angle, it is possible that anything standing next to the window can be foreseen as a black shadow.
The renters explained to us that the blinds were originally in the house when they moved in.
We conducted an EMF sweep of the entire property every half hour. There were no unusual readings detected
at any point in time. The five hours of recorded audio were also unsuccessful in detecting strange activity.
Overall, our equipment produced no conclusive paranormal evidence.
About the only evidence recorded that was possibly paranormal was in one of the video cameras that was
stationed in the hallway of the second floor. At around 9:30pm, George walked up to the second floor
where we were conducting investigations. Our video recorded him walking upstairs and going inside the
bedroom. Then mysteriously, static obscured the video and the camera stopped recording. George was
upstairs for approximately thirty minutes when he decided to go back downstairs. When George walked
down the stairs, the video camera started recording again. After that, the camera did not stop recording
until the tape ran out an hour later.
OUR CONCLUSION
We attempted to debunk two episodes of paranormal activity. One of which was the case of the cabinet
doors, which were found mysteriously left opened. Our investigation discovered that there were springs
on each cabinet door. Since no one ever witnessed the cabinets opening on their own, it could have been
possible that one of the persons living in the house had simply forgotten to close them. Or maybe one
of them did not use enough force to close the cabinet. If this is the case, the springs would certainly
cause the door to remain open.
As to the black shadow that was allegedly seen on the second floor window, this also could have a logical
explanation. One explanation could be that a light fixture (much like the image shown to the right) was close to
the window and could have been mistaken for a ghost. Since the family was already weary of the second
floor, their experiences may have been self-manifested. Another is that if the window was open, it may
have been the curtains swaying, caused by the wind. And at the time the person looked up in the window,
the curtain just happened to form a figure
(
Matrixing).
We may have solved two alleged paranormal incidents, however we must acknowledge that there were
other situations (witnessed by different people) that could not be explained. Other incidents such as
the attack in the restroom, footstep noises from the second floor, and disembodied voices were impossible
to produce a rational explanation nor recreated. The only way to closely prove these situations
to be true is that one of our investigators physically witnessed and/or recorded the incident with one
of our equipment. However, five hours of investigation concluded no such activity.
We must mention that not all paranormal investigation conducted in haunted areas will always record
something paranormal. Usually in some situations when you are not looking for “it” is when you experience “it”.
Many (if not all) proven and very active haunted places can sometimes have no paranormal activity for a
long period of time. Nevertheless, based on our physical evidence we are unable to make a valid conclusion
to support a haunting at the San Clemente residence.
UPDATE
In December of 2004, we received new information on the investigation from Mary. Apparently the wife of
the man who built the house had died of a heart attack. Approximately the same time that the wife died
(1:55am), Mary and George were awoken by several loud banging sounds coming from the upstairs bedroom.
Both of them were too scared to walk upstairs. Later that afternoon, Mary went up to the second floor
and saw a light fixture in the hallway that was cracked. She did not notice anything else out of the
ordinary. The roommate Charles was out of town at the time.
Mary and George received news that the builder’s wife had died two days later. It was then when they
realized that the noises they heard might have been paranormal in nature. Unfortunately, Geist Research
was not able to conduct a second investigation. George and Charles no longer live in the area due to
the reason that the builder’s children decided to sell the house.
YOUR THOUGHTS
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