Thornhaven Manor: After Action Report

The ECIPI team investigated at Thornhaven Manor on August 30th and 31st.  Thornhaven Manor is located outside of New Castle, Indiana.  The house was built in the 1840s and originally sat on 400 acres.  The property now consists of 7 acres.  The house has sat empty for some time and the property owner, Steve, is working to renovate it.   You can visit Thornhaven Manor's Facebook page here.

We began our evening with a tour of the property from Steve, along with discussion of the site's history.  The house, even in it's current state, is beautiful.  You can imagine how it would have looked in its hey-day, when the Powell family first lived there.  There are rumors of a tunnel leading out from the kitchen which was used for the Undergroud Railroad, though so far that tunnel hasn't been located.  There was once a tower on the house as well, which might have been used for signaling that this was a safe spot for runaway slaves to stop as well as for a look-out to see if anyone was coming.  Even without the tower, the windows offer gorgeous views of the surrounding countryside.
Once our tour was over, the team went to work setting up our 8 cameras, our audio recorders, Gauss meters, and a Haunted Trigger Object.  We also took advantage of the fire-ring and got a nice blaze going over which we cooked hamburgers (and vegan hot dogs for one team member).  We had an enjoyable dinner, allowing the house to settle a bit before we began our investigations.

Sound carries quite well inside the house.  It soon became apparent that we couldn't have any conversations at our base camp (in the dining room) without the sound reaching our investigative team, no matter what location that team was at in the house.  The dining room itself was active as well.  We got numerous K2 hits there and even had the battery-powered "candles" turn themselves on.  When we make a return visit, we will try to establish base camp outside to allow for a proper investigation of the dining room area and we will use smaller teams inside the house.

The more energy the team had, the more response we seemed to receive from whatever entities are in the house.  As we grew tired later in the night, activity seemed to drop off.  We found that the name "Lizzie" and the phrase "time out" seemed to trigger responses on our K2 meter.  We also found that we got more responses when we were conversing amongst ourselves rather than in reply to questions posed.

At one point in the evening the entire team heard an eerie cackling noise.  We had split into two groups, one upstairs and one downstairs.  Everyone heard the sound.  At first each group thought it was someone in the other group, but we quickly determined that wasn't the case.  The sound was also captured on numerous audio recorders.  An EVP was caught early in the evening as well, and one investigator reported hearing someone male whisper her name in the main stairwell of the house (at a time when all the male investigators were outside).  Full evidence review will begin this evening and we are hopeful that we will have caught more.  The site was definitely active and interesting.  We want to make a return visit next year!

Debunking

We conducted an investigation in a location we've visited a few times last night.  The last time we were at this site, one of our Gauss meters started going off almost as soon as our set-up was finished.  It was laying on a fireplace mantle in clear view of our camera (you can see footage here.)  We spent a good deal of time trying to figure out what was happening.  We changed batteries, we swapped out which Gauss was in the spot, and we checked the readings on other EMF meters.  Only the Guass was reacting and even when we swapped out meters, we got the same reaction from the other Gauss.  We could not figure out what was happening.  When we checked with our client, he confirmed that there was no electricity in that wall and said that the high tension lines which were in the alley behind the wall were not live.  We knew one of our top priorities last night was to further investigate that place.

We set a Gauss meter in the spot as part of our set-up, and it started going off immediately.  We completed set up, gave the space a few minutes to settle, and on our first watch investigated that room.  Two investigators checked with other meters and were able to get a high reading against that wall, if the meters were held at a 90 degree angle to the wall.  When we set the Gauss meter upright, instead of laying flat on the fireplace mantle, we got no reaction from it. 

Our investigation continued and we were able to step out onto a fire escape which went right below the high-tension lines.  We took a meter out and got a high reading off the lines.  Our client says they are not supposed to be live, but whether they're running current or not, they are generating high levels of EMF, enough to make us conclude that they are the reason for the Gauss meter's reaction.

It's hard not to feel a little disappointed when something like this is debunked, but we really shouldn't.  We did good work.  We didn't assume that the reason for our meter's reaction was paranormal.  We worked diligently to find an explanation.

We look forward to reviewing the evidence from this investigation and to prepping for our next, taking place later this month.

After a quiet few months, things are heating up for the ECIPI team.  This past weekend we were privileged to be part of Magna Cum Murder XIX.  On Friday afternoon we presented a panel, "PI Means Paranormal Investigator," in which we outlined our approach to paranormal investigations for an audience of mystery writers and readers.  The panel was well received.  We not only got great questions during the question & answer period, but had several people stopping us throughout the weekend to ask questions and share stories.

For Halloween, we were invited to contribute to the Jungle Red Writers blog by author Hank Phillipi Ryan.  Writing the blog was a fun challenge, and responding to comments and questions has been very enjoyable today! 

We have two investigations set up for November, both returns to places we've worked before.  We're looking forward to seeing if any of our previous experiences repeat themselves as well as to introducing a friend to ghost hunting!  We'll share results here once they are available.

Evidence from Muncie Civic Theater is now up on our YouTube channel!

On September 15th, the ECIPI team (and friends) were privileged to get to investigate at the historic Muncie Civic Theater.  We set up more equipment than we'd ever used before as there were reports of activity throughout the building.  We made our reveal to the Civic Theater team and, with their permission, are now able to share what we caught at the site.  Most of what we collected was audio evidence, but there are two video clips as well.  All of it has been uploaded to our YouTube channel as well as linked to our Facebook page so you can check out what we caught.  You'll find links to both places in the left-hand column of this website. 

Radio Show Tonight!

ECIPI co-founders Andy & Shelly Gage will be on a special Halloween edition of HP Radio tonight on RevolRadio.  We'll be broadcasting live from the Columbia Theater (formerly Center Stage) in downtown Muncie and sharing local ghost stories!  Follow the link above to listen to the show, which starts at 7pm EDT. 

Historical Ghost Tour

Welcome!

Welcome to the brand-new website for East Central Indiana Paranormal Investigators!  At this site you'll find information about our organization and we'll also share bits of evidence from our investigations (when our clients allow it).  We hope you'll find the site informative and that you'll feel free to contact us with your questions or to set up an investigation!