How
the Investigation came to be:
If
ever there was a typical haunted house story….a very old abandoned house sitting in the middle of an old cemetery dating
back to the mid 1800’s…it was the Clinton Grove Cemetery Caretaker’s house, the best setting for a ParaHaunt
paranormal investigation. I’ve wanted to perform an investigation on this
house, and other’s like it, for quite some time. Macomb County
has many historical homes and properties contained within its boarders. Getting
permission was the key element I had to achieve. I found out that the Macomb
Historical Society owned this house as well as many more old historical houses, some now turned into museums. As I started to make a number of contacts, I came across the lady who was on the board of the Macomb Historical
Society and had authority over the caretaker’s house. At the same time,
I was working on a plan for the local cable station, Bath City Beat out of Mt. Clemens,
to join us for an investigation. The two events occurred at the right time as
the Historical Society gave their permission and the cable station agreed to feature ParaHaunt on their show.
Background Information:
This
beautiful Tudor home was build on the grounds of Clinton Grove
Cemetery somewhere back in the late 1870’s.
The home had its utilities cut off for the eventual moving of it’s location by the Macomb Historical Society
to another site. The cemetery itself was created back in 1855 and features many
prominent local historical figures. It sits on roughly 40 acres of land which
holds approximately 1800 grave sites. Within its iron gates surrounding the grounds,
it contains a veteran section, children section, mausoleums, chapels, and other such vaults. Clinton
Grove Cemetery has many historical ‘Cemetery
Walks’ throughout the year. Although I had a ‘sit down meeting’
with Carolyn of the Macomb Historical Society, I was told that most of the history and records of the house were lost over
the years and not preserved before the Society took the house over. The people
who became ‘Caretaker’ of the cemetery would live in this house with their families. As far back as records were kept, as well as word of mouth, to anyone’s knowledge, no one had passed
away within its walls. The last person to live in the home was a renter who moved
out back in the late 1990’s. The home has stood vacant ever since (6 years
as of this investigation).
The Investigation:
The Bath
City Beat cable guys came to the ParaHaunt meeting location (my house) around 6 PM. I showed them our office and they started setting up their cameras to get ready for
our “Pre-Investigation Meeting”. The rest of the ParaHaunt Team,
consisting of Scott, Sean and Pam showed up around 6:15 PM. As the members sat down at our conference table, the cameras started rolling. We were told to ignore them and to do our thing so that they could observe us in action, thereby creating
the show. Jeff started by telling everyone of the history of the house, what
we might be facing, and then laid out a plan as to where we would set up within the house.
Next, the cable reporters wanted to interview each of us individually
to get our opinions and insights into being paranormal researchers as well as what we might be feeling before going into this
house. They video taped us leaving our meeting place as we all drove to our subject
location, Clinton Grove Cemetery.
As we pulled though the 8 foot beautifully sculptured
iron gates of the cemetery, we noticed the caretaker’s house sitting on the right side of the cemetery road. Normally, as with our ever present enthusiasm for what we do, we would have set up quickly and get to work. This time, the cable camera guys wanted to get their cameras out and get footage of
the team first entering the house. After pausing for them to set up, it was right
back to work. We set up our base station in the living room, started the generator
which sat outside in the back of the house, laid the electrical wires to power up all of our equipment, and began sketching
the floor plan. The team started by walking through the house ‘sensing’
any feelings of a presence being there with us. Sean, Pam and Jeff carried EMF
meters to locate any electromagnetic fields. The reading throughout the entire
house was very low, if any. There was one room, a small bedroom upstairs, in
which a reading of 1.6 was registered. Sean said that he was actually able to follow this faint reading from the hallway to
the room and then into the closet. Being that all electricity to the house had
been cut, this was a remarkable and an interesting observance. Sean set up a
digital voice recorder and placed it on the floor of that room. Independently,
before we even entered the house, Scott had sensed the presence of a little girl with blond hair about 7-8 years old dressed
in a white nightgown. He felt that she had died in this outfit, perhaps in the
house itself. He decided it was time to get some picture of the outside of the
house before the sun had set completely. While Scott was outside, Jeff took a
few members of the historical society and one camera man into the basement with an EMF meter as well as a digital voice recorder. No readings were found. Jeff started
asking questions into the recorder to see if anyone was with us or wanted to communicate.
After further review of the recorded footage, nothing was audible. As the sun went down, the team decided it was time
to activate the infrared cameras. Pam and Jeff were given a walkie-talkie and
started walking up the stairs to the second story. Pam held the camera while
Jeff made sure the cords didn’t get tangled. Some remarkable orbs were
located. They walked from room to room collecting footage. Scott wanted to set the camera in the corner of the downstairs family room.
Again, a great number of orbs were moving in several directions and at different speeds. Experiments of kicking up dust were performed to determine their interaction with the infrared camera. The dust particles did not contribute to the amount of orbs we were witnessing at
that time. Afterwards, Scott directed everyone upstairs into one of the bedrooms,
not the one which had the EMF readings. Scott felt that the young girl he sensed
needed her ‘safe haven’ and so he didn’t want to disturb her space.
We performed a ‘circle’ while using a vanilla candle, 2 digital voice recorders in separate locations upstairs
and one infrared camera set up in the corner of the room. At one point, Jeff
was asking questions of the little girl. Certain questions made the flame on
the candle flicker quite a bit, but no other visible or auditory sounds were noted.
After the circle, we took pictures of us with the Historical Society members as well as Bath City Beat Cable guys and
then called it a night.
The Results:
After listening to all of the digital voice recording
footage, it was determined that there was very little auditory activity present. In
one case though, just before Jeff walked into the far bedroom to turn off the recorder, a slight noise occurred which sounded
like an electrical discharge or that the tiny recorder moved a very small distance on the floor. It was just a few seconds before Jeff walked into the room, and worth noting. Many orbs were located and observed moving at various speeds and directions within the enclosed house. Since there was no forced heat or fans present, the movement of the orbs was worth
noting. Finally, while Scott was outside taking pictures of the house, he seemed
to capture and amazing photo from the front living room window. The face is not
distorted but oversized to the point of questioning its authenticity. It is the
face of an old man looking to the left of Scott’s position, looking intently at the members of the cable video crew
performing an Intro for the cable show (shown at the top of this page). We invite everyone to examine the photo of this face and make their own determination. None of our Sensitives felt anything angry or evil. It was
a very nice experience to perform an investigation with the rest of the Macomb Historical Society looking on. Sometimes, the most haunted looking house in the most scariest place, a 2 story 1870’s
Tudor in the middle of an old cemetery, is nothing more than a nice looking old houses waiting for someone to bring renovation
and love once again. Sometimes the houses you would least expect to be haunted,
nice suburban single family unit neighborhood, may have very much activity and in some cases, to a dangerous extent. The Clinton Grove Cemetery office claimed to receive many calls from viewers of the
show which aired our investigation begging them to allow the callers to spend the night inside the house. Needless
to say, the offers were declined (so far).
Written by:
Jeffrey
Lead Investigator
/ Co-Owner / Public Relations
ParaHaunt Paranormal
Researchers
Special Thanks To:
· Bath City Beat Cable Show
· Clinton Grove Cemetery(http://www.clintongrove.com/)
· Macomb County Historical Society (http://www.hsmichigan.org/mountclemens/)
For more information
on the restoration and preservation fund for the Caretaker’s house, please contact the Macomb County Historical Society.
