The Ghosts Under The Stairs
This house in St. George has been the source of two previous investigations by the Dixie Paranormal Society. Audio recordings from past investigations revealed at least two voices: that of an older male (who seemed rather grouchy) and that of an adult female. The residents also suspected there was a child or adolescent in the midst as well, based on things they’d seen and experienced at night. During those previous investigations, the male yelled at one of the investigators to “Get out!” The woman was recorded as saying “Please don’t cleanse this house.”
The residents decided that as long as the ghosts laid low, they could stay. They became used to a light switch flipping itself from “off” to the “on” position in the master bedroom closet and the master bedroom door occasionally swinging on its hinge or closing itself. They knew that at least one ghost- they suspected the male- had taken up residence underneath the staircase, which is located in the basement laundry room. They assumed, but didn’t know for sure, that there was a woman hanging out somewhere upstairs.
However, after a few months, the activity began again and the ghosts became extremely intrusive and unwelcome. The residents reported massive drains of energy that no amount of sleep could cure. One of the children reported dreams of standing in front of the bedroom door, only to wake up and find she really was standing in front of the bedroom door, with no recollection how she got there. She, too, felt tired all the time. The entire family felt sort of “off”, irritable and a little pessimistic. That’s when the owners decided it was time for the ghosts to go and we were called in to get rid of these ghosts.
Utilizing a Native American technique, bundles of dried, resinous herbs were carefully burned and the house was “smudged” from top to bottom. Once this was done, I entered the scene and did a walkthrough of the house to see what I could sense. Were the ghosts gone? Or were they still there?
Upon entering the house, I could tell the smudging job had been thorough. I didn’t feel anything ghostly on the main floor. However, as I descended the staircase and made my way to the basement, I began to feel that strange, oppressive feeling that let me know a ghost was still around. After checking out the space underneath the stairs, and the master closet (two “hot spots” the ghost was known to travel) I could tell something was definitely still there.
Another smudging bundle was lit, and as I carried it underneath the stairs, I could feel the energy in the room become erratic. There was a lot of anger that I hadn’t sensed before. I could tell the ghost was mad, and probably calling us a lot of names. The next hour or so was spent “chasing” the ghost from one hotspot to the next as he fled from the smoke given off by the burning herbs. He was commanded to leave several times, and each time, I felt an intense anger as the ghost heard those words. He didn’t like being told to get out at all. In fact, every time the owner said “This is my house,” I could feel the ghost get angry. The door even began swinging back and forth as the ghost made his discontent known. At this point, we broke out the electronic equipment to see if we could catch any audio recordings.
This is where things got very interesting. As I held the smudge stick under the stairs, with the audio devices detecting and recording, I began talking to whoever was under the stairs. What followed was an actual conversation, a full dialogue between me and the ghost. “Do you want me to leave?” was answered by a resounding “Yeah!” I could even detect a defiant “No” and, I suspected, some blips that were some colorful language. This was confirmed as we later listened to the audio and isolated the sound blips from the rest of the recording. We were definitely being called some colorful names and the ghosts were staking a claim and refusing to budge.
Not only that, we distinctly heard three different voices on the recording. One was an older sounding gentleman with a sort of “boom” to his voice whenever he spoke. He was forceful in telling us to get out. The second was of another male, who sounded much younger, and had a colorful vocabulary which he utilized to spout off his tempter. The third was the voice of a woman who was much more polite than the other two, and seemed to be trying to reason with us. When we asked why they were sticking around the house, she replied with the word “trapped.” When I explained that they weren’t trapped and they needed to get out, the younger male forcibly said “No” and “Get out”....as well as calling us unsavory names.
The male ghosts didn’t want to tell us their names, but the woman seemed to be saying something. It’s hard to make out, but to our ears, it sounded like either “Flora” or “Florence.” What do you think? Can you hear what she said?
https://soundcloud.com/terry-blackb…/woman-tell-me-your-name
We also discovered the older male speaks with an accent. The best way to describe it was to say that he sounded like Arnold Schwarzenegger! I asked what country he was from and we got some audio bleeps. Can you make them out?
Also, if you’re interested in hearing insults hurled at us from the great beyond (and it won’t offend you) you can listen to the more colorful things they called us during our investigation.
After a few hours the ghosts became tired as the smudging did its job of weakening them. One final round of questions followed as we cornered the ghosts in the closet where they were desperately trying to get away from us. When I asked if they were there, or if they were in the corner, or where they were, we picked up a weakened voice saying “I’m near you.”https://soundcloud.com/terry-blackb…/over-here-in-the-corner We also caught the woman’s voice one last time when I asked if she wanted us to leave. A very weakened “Yeah” came through and we decided to let the smudging continue to do its work and weaken the ghosts.
That night everyone slept well, woke up feeling refreshed, and there were no incidents of the children sleepwalking. The house will need to be smudged again as they regain energy and it will come down to a battle of wills. Eventually they’ll become tired of being weakened and move on. Until then, we have a lot of audio to listen to and puzzle over. Perhaps you can detect some words in the blips that we were unable to make out that night.
