The Waverly Hills Sanitorium! What can I say?! This is one of THE most spookiest, creepiest places I have been to! Haven't heard of it? Check it out!
http://www.therealwaverlyhills.com/
It had been a while...a couple months, since I had gone to an event or traipsed off ghost hunting and I was so itching and so excited to be planning this one! PLUS! I was going to be going out there to Kentucky with Darkness Radio's Dave Schrader AND The Ghost Adventure guys from the Travel Channel!
http://www.travelchannel.com/TV_Shows/Ghost_Adventures
I had not really ever seen their show before. I had heard of it and caught maybe some bits and pieces and was told that they really provoke a lot more and challenge the nastier energies and spirits at some of these haunted locations. So before I left, I went to YouTube (which is a great source to see some great videos!) and I checked them out before I went so I had a sense of who they were.
While in Gettysburg, as I may have mentioned, last year, I was walking thru the vendor tables looking for a device called the "Shack Hack". Dave, from Darkness Radio was selling a few of these at his table and I purchased it from him and he showed me how to use it.
Basically what it is, is a regular AM/FM radio from Radio Shack that has been hacked so that when you press on the scan button, it will continuously scan the AM frequency channels. This provides white noise and the theory behind that is that the spirits can utilize this white noise and use it to communicate to us.
WOW! eh?
Does it work? Well, of course not 100% of the time nor is their proof--->skeptic talking there.
Now we all know what a radio voice sounds like, that booming, distinctive type of voice that you hear on commercials or announcers. Great voices like Dave Schrader from Darkness Radio or that famous guy who was featured on tv a few months back that you may have seen who was picked up off the streets looking for money and advertising himself as having a golden radio voice.
The channels are scanned so quickly, that you don't normally get a whole phrase out from any one channel. So when you get a word or reply when asking questions, it's assumed ---wince--- that it's a spirit replying. Ahem. yea....that lil word, assume. Perhaps, we should say hope anyway. :)
Now the issues with this device is that yes, it can eventually stop on a radio channel and you have to push the scan button again.
It's also hard to hear thru all the crackly white noise what is said sometimes.
You do have to have a recorder on too so you can capture what you do get from it so you can analyze it later.
Of course there is again, no way to really verify this but it IS an interesting theory and cheap piece of equipment that is so simple and yet it can really give you a great response at times.
Sometimes you may not get anything at all, but it does not mean it is not working. I have a theory on this device and others that if what they are designed for, is true, and let us say it is for argument's sake. Then, it is a theory of mine that the spirits have to understand it and realize that they can utilize it to communicate with us and that yes, we are actually hearing and responding to them too! Now that's a big concept I would think.
Has my Shack Hack worked? Yes, I do believe it has. So here's my story on it:
I got it in Gettysburg last year while with my friend Tina of Ghost-Guide.com and after Dave showed us how to work it, we went up to our room to put some things away before our next class. While there, I thought to perhaps give it a whirl real quick to see if we might get something there in our room. I began to ask if there was anyone there and if so, could they please tell us their name. After a minute or so of scanning, we immediately got a response: David.
Wow! Ok, maybe not too impressive and yea, maybe it could have been a radio voice coming thru? Ok so next question. I said hello David. I told him my name and Tina's and then asked if he wanted to talk to Tina? Same voice came back and said "No." I was like ok, laughed a bit and then said oh so if you would like to talk to me, is there a message or something you might like to tell me? Same voice again said: "Druid, listen."
I didn't quite make out the first word, but Tina did. She gasped and asked me if I heard what he said? She told me and I was so shocked and surprised at this for the word Druid has significant meaning to me as I am studying Druidry and only Tina knew that.
Later on, we had the Shack Hack down on Confederate Ave where we got the EVP that I had on the previous blog post here. Just before we captured that EVP, I had the Shack Hack turned on and the antennae pointed out the window and we began to ask if there was anyone there who might like to talk with us or share something with us. As the radio scanned the channels, we kept getting these three words repeating over and over, in a halting manner and in a different order:
"Neil, shot, dead."
Unfortunately, I had no way of knowing at the time just the significance of where we were and now that I've returned to Gettysburg after researching it a bit more, I went to the monuments in the area along Confederate Ave and I did not see any soldiers who may have been named Neil. Those in that particular area we were at, only shows the General or officer in charge and the state that is represented and honored there.
Unfortunately, I did not have the foresight to have my recorder on to have captured that. I did go down there to see if I could duplicate it again when I just returned to Gettysburg and sadly, no.
I don't think it was a civil war program at all considering a man's voice must have said it like 7-8 times those same three words and in different order. Very bizarre!
Features on this radio is that yes, it is a typical radio too and you can listen to the FM channels as well. There is also a place for headphones and a nice wrist strap and the volume control is on the left side.
It's a nice lil radio, lightweight and small and not cumbersome. It does take time to get used to the white noise and being able to distinguish a radio voice from something that might just be..otherworldly. ;) But it is relatively cheap and an easy add to your ghost hunting equipment.
I'll be talking about this radio again as I go into the Waverly Hills investigation which is coming next!
GP
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This was my second piece of equipment that I purchased at Radio Shack. I can't remember how much I paid for it back then, but it wasn't too expensive, maybe $50/$60 at the time? It's a simple little recorder and uses 2 AAA batteries that seem to last forever!
It's very simple to use and has 4 folders that will hold 100 messages per folder. The recording time on it varies depending on the speed you are recording at. It can go as little as 5 hours and 40 mins to 71 hours and 40 mins!
I have used this recorder alot for every investigation and event over the years and picked up some pretty good evps on it now and then.
I sent my friend Tina, a couple of the recordings her and I got from the Stanley Hotel and Gettysburg and she cleaned them up a wee bit and amplified the sound so you could hear but this is what we heard on the recorder when we played it back. This is from the Stanley if you have not listened to it yet:
http://www.youtube.com/user/GhostPeeker?feature=mhum#p/a/f/1/axck-vjdqqU
And this one is from Gettysburg:
http://www.youtube.com/user/GhostPeeker?feature=mhum#p/a/f/0/JhdyHCVZgh0
What you do when you've recorded on this device, is take the transfer cable and plug it right into your laptop or pc and using the software it comes with, you upload the file to your pc. Then, you can put it thru a program like Audacity (that is a free download off the internet) and start to amplify, single out or clean up what you believe you might hear.
Now, you have to bear in mind alot of things when you go to do this. While recording, if you are sniffling, shifting positions or say, a car comes by, you want to always 'mark' that sound. For example, while we were recording in the car in Gettysburg out on Confederate Ave, whenever a car came by, we would say, "car going by", or when I shifted and my leather jacket creaked, we announced that sound.
Reasoning why? Well when you go back to listen to that sound file, some creaks or shifts or odd sounds you may believe it is something when in reality it was just cloth or material rubbing and it just 'sounds' like a voice or could be a word or two or phrase.
I know that sounds odd, but sometimes if you do not go back to listen to these sounds for days or weeks later, you will not remember those little details and your brain, as much of a wonder as it is, will immediately be searching for patterns and sounds and words and it will 'matrix'. Matrixing is when your brain is trying to find that pattern or when it tries to make sense out of the nonsensical, trying to find the logic in the illogical...the pattern in an abstract painting or picture. So this is very important for you to remember to try to always do while out investigating.
As I attended some of the past few events, I began to see other recorders and I was always intrigued about the EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomenons). I always felt I should probably try to get a different recorder, something maybe a little better or had a better mic to it.
Recently, while at the Stanley Hotel just last month, I attended a Darkness Radio Event with Ghost Adventures. Billy Tolley, who is the EVP guy for Ghost Adventures was there and he did a class on recorders and EVPs. He went over the various different ones out there, including my own and talked about the pros and cons of them. I had been thinking recently that I should pick up a better recorder, maybe one that had a special extended mic or something? I knew it would probably be expensive however. Yet, listening to what Billy had to say during his great class made me think otherwise! He said that oftentimes than not, it is the smaller little cheaper recorders that they manage to get more EVPs on than the expensive $300 ones!! In fact, my Olympus got most EVPs on it versus other recorders!
How exciting to know that!
Plus, it is difficult to get my recorder now from what he said.
Here's a lil fact sheet on this specific recorder that I found however on the internet:
http://www.olympusamerica.com/cpg_section/cpg_support_faqs.asp?id=1272#1
And if you look it up on good ol Amazon...yup! Sure enough I saw one there for $99!
If you have not used Amazon yet, you'd be amazed at the things you can find there! So I've added Amazon search engine to this blog for you to look things right up on it! I order lots from Amazon myself and I could not say enough good things about them! I joined their Prime membership and I pay a fee yearly so that on many of the items I purchase from them, the shipping is free and I can get it in 1-2 days!! It's awesome!
Truly free? No, you pay that yearly amount but if you order alot from them throughout the year, that amount you'd easily pay and more on shipping fees so for me, it's well worth it! :) The only time I have to pay for shipping is when the items comes from a third party outside of Amazon.
That's about all I can say of this great Olympus recorder. It's reliable and it's served me well over the years and after Billy's class, I am definitely keeping it! Thanks Billy!
I'll be talking more about that return trip to the Stanley and also about the EVP Experts, Mark and Debby Constantino! A really great couple who really know how to get EVPs!
GP
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