I sit and listen to my surroundings during the investigation at Edinburgh Manor.
Death is inevitable. Everyone at some point will experience the death of others, and eventually, die themselves. Death is the unknown. No one knows what happens after we die.
Like anyone in their early 40s, I’ve experienced my share of death – all three of my grandparents, three dogs, a cat, and most recently, my mom in September 2015 and my only brother in June 2016. My mom didn’t make it out of heart surgery. Her death was unexpected and sudden. My brother, four days short of his 40th birthday, took his own life.
I’ve thought a lot about death and the paranormal lately. I’ve always watched the ghost hunting shows on television, like Ghost Adventures, Dead Files and Ghost Hunters, and was always fascinated by the evidence investigators caught. I believe spirits exist. I’ve seen a couple.
I have been a professional journalist for almost 20 years, and I like to think I exhibit two of the strongest traits of a journalist – logical thinking and an insatiable curiosity.
To satisfy my natural curiosity, in late April, I was given an opportunity to join the Odyssey Paranormal Society, based out of the Twin Cities, in a two-day investigation of one of the most well-known haunted locations in Iowa, Edinburgh Manor in rural Scott Grove, Iowa.
The property the hulking brick building sits on was at first Jones County’s poor farm, until it was demolished in 1910 to make way for Edinburgh Manor, which was in operation for almost 100 years. It is documented more than 80 people died on the property.
As I drove the 40 minutes to Monticello to first interview Michael O’Neil and Josie Brugman, the society’s founder and a member, respectively, leading the investigation, I reflected on my mom and brother, and what they were now, after death.
After the interview, we took off for Edinburgh. When the building first came into sight, any random thoughts were replaced with anticipation of what the weekend would bring. I was optimistic I would be able to experience something, but also realistic that it may not happen.
Within 10 minutes of being in the building, something happened. I was in the basement, where a spirit known as “The Joker” is reported to frequent. I had my Nikon D80 camera with a professional Nikon mounted flash on. All of a sudden, the flash’s display and circular arrow grid started flashing on and off. I have video of this phenomenon as it happened. In the many years I have owned that camera and flash, it had never happened, and it didn’t the rest of the weekend.
That was a great way to start the investigation, but it was only just beginning. Later in the first night, Michael led a group of VIP guests to a far wing of the second floor. It was pretty quiet, so Michael asked if there was anyone at the other end of the floor who wanted to speak with us. We both heard, plain as day, an “Ummmmmmmmmmm.” A disembodied voice. Audible. So awesome. My skin shivered.
Early the next afternoon, it happened again. I was downstairs the basement again, with Josie. We were nearing the end of the community room when we heard, from the left, someone say “Hello.” Plain as day. There was no one else on the floor and only one other person in the building.
Near the end of the second night at Edinburgh, another group of VIP guests who had formed their own team were in the billiard room. They had many types of their own equipment, including a flash light that has to be twisted to turn on and off. They had this flashlight sitting on the billiard table, and for 40 minutes, we witnessed the team members ask questions of a spirit, and have the flashlight turn on to answer questions in the affirmative, and then turn off on command of team members.
Both that night and the first night, I also heard voices come out of the spirit box, which allows spirits to manipulate rapidly scanned radio frequencies into words. Many of the words were intelligible answers to questions.
The Ovilus III device was my favorite piece of equipment to use during the investigation, It is like a modern-day Speak and Spell. It allows spirits to harness the energy around them to form words that come through the Ovilus. Much of the words that come out of the device have no meaning, and you have to be careful not to make something out of nothing, but there were quite a few times where what was being said made sense.
Early on with the device, we were getting words that related to farming, such as harvest, corn, cattle, planting, dirt, etc. We first dismissed those as being just random words, but later on the second day, we realized that we were focusing on the property’s second use, as an insane asylum, rather than its first use, as a poor farm. People who worked on the poor farm would have worked the land like a farm. Suddenly those words made sense. But that’s a stretch.
Other phrases weren’t. We received “Expect foe vapor,” “Malicious mist,” and “Seven enemy” when we asked how many people were in the room. There were seven of us. But perhaps the most compelling result for me was when fellow guest Kassie Simonis had the Ovilus shortly after I gave it to her, and it said “Digging Jim.” My name was the only one said aloud on a device all weekend. And when Kassie asked if the spirit wanted her to give the Ovilus back to me, it said, almost immediately, “Correct.”
The weekend at Edinburgh was one I will never forget. It solidified my belief in the paranormal, and made me a little more comfortable about the death of my mom and brother. It also stirred something inside me, a desire to do more paranormal investigations. I’m going on another one June 2-3, at the Farrar Schoolhouse near Des Moines, Iowa. My mind, and my spirit, look forward to it.
WINTER WONDERS 