Abstract

After interviews with witnesses, Nichols and Roll spent three days at McRaven House, Vicksburg Mississippi, and two visits (two days per visit) totaling four days at the Aponasewicz house, California Pennsylvania. Instrumental recordings were taken at sites where witnesses had experienced haunting-type phenomena. Control recordings were taken in other parts of the houses and grounds. The equipment and method utilized was similar to those employed in previous investigations (Roll and Nichols, 1999, and Nichols and Roll, 1999).

At McRaven House, Roll and Nichols found an elevated geomagnetic field (GMF), the epicenter of which appears to be located beneath the house itself, and which decreases with distance in all directions from the house. The unusual magnetic properties of the site had also affected the bricks of which the house and surrounding structures were constructed, These bricks, made by slaves prior to the Civil War, appeared (due to their exceedingly red coloration) to contain significant amounts of ferrous salts. This property rendered the bricks particularly susceptible to magnetization from the apparent geomagnetic anomaly at the site. Individual bricks were found to possess significant magnetic properties, and the axis of these magnetic fields varied depending upon the orientation of the individual bricks relative to the earth beneath the house.

Photographic tests conducted at the site produced numerous photographic anomalies, consisting of bubble-like translucent orbs which appeared on the digital photographs in copious numbers. Photographs upon which these orbs appeared were taken at times which coincided with unusual magnetic field fluctuations and abrupt increases in atmospheric ion concentrations.

A second investigation was conducted at a small wooden house in California, Pennsylvania. Known as the Aponasewicz house, it was formerly the home of Laura DuBois and her husband John, and Edward Henderson (Laura's father)*. During their two years of occupancy in the house, the DuBois family reported unexplained footsteps, human voices, a sense of presence, apparitions, and in the basement floating orbs of light. The phenomena was attributed to a deceased couple who had occupied the home for many years and were surrogate parents to Mrs. Dubois.

We learned of the case from Dr. Rene Horath, professor of Industrial Engineering at the University of California (Pennsylvania) who had recorded the luminous orbs with a Sony Night Shot video camera. Using the same type of camera, we recorded the orbs, observed them on the video monitor and directly in some instances. They would appear suddenly, move in straight or curved trajectories, slowly or fast. The orbs were usually invisible to the naked eye. On one occasion when Nichols detected an orb nearby, he inserted a temperature probe and found the orb to be 78 degrees Fahrenheit, ten degrees warmer than the room. An electromagnetic probe placed in the path of another orb recorded a field of 120 milligauss (mG).

During two investigative visits, the ambient geomagnetic field in the basement was high at 760-880 mG. The electromagnetic field was unremarkable. The positive ion density was a moderate 2,700 per cm³ and the negative 2,400.