This, our tenth adventure, was one I've had in mind since the conception of our face-your-fears club. As it's only seasonally available, I've been waiting for many months to execute this ghastly plan, and could think of no better adventure for a chilly October night. This month's adventure was paranormal investigating!!!
For this adventure, we drove to Belvoir Winery in Liberty, MO. The winery is housed in the former Oddfellows Home, claimed to be "the second most haunted place in Missouri." The property has formerly served as an orphanage, an "old folks home," a medical hospital and a school. Visitors have reported hearing voices and footsteps, seeing shadows and apparitions, doors opening and closing, and some touching.
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The main building at Belvoir Winery |
We arrived early and headed to the bar for a wine tasting . . . it would be a shame not to take advantage of the fact that we were at a functioning winery, right? After our sampling, we all decided we liked one particular red wine the best, and bought a few bottles to last the rest of the night. We then congregated in the meeting room with approximately 40-50 other people who were also there for the investigation. We received a brief history of the complex and introduction to the ghost hunters that would be leading us throughout the night. We divided into small groups and headed out to different spots on the property in search of paranormal evidence.
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Notice the orb on Jessi's (the most apprehensive of all of us about this adventure) head! She didn't feel good about it when she saw the orb show up on my camera's playback |
Our first stop was "the bunker," formally used for supply storage. We sat in the dark room with several motion-activated lights around us, pointing away from our group and towards the emptiness of the surrounding space. Our guides encouraged any spirits present to make their presence known by activating the lights, which happened over and over again. The guides tried to communicate with the spirit by asking simple yes/no questions and accepting a light turning on as an affirmative response. Supposedly, the spirit present in the bunker was that of a "big boy," and at one point I was asked to try and encourage him to activate a particular light on one side of the room. My simple request came out sounding like a suggestive comment, and consequently became the title of this blog post. :)
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The entrance to the bunker |
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Inside the bunker |
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Femmes inside the bunker- nervously chewing on that stir stick was Jessi's coping mechanism |
After the bunker, we returned to the meeting room along with everyone else. The group that had gone to the cemetery first shared a story that had us all anxious to get to the cemetery ourselves. They said that while they were walking through the cemetery they started communicating with a spirit named Arthur, using a EVP (electronic voice phenomena) recorder. One of the girls in the group introduced herself to Arthur as "Julia." Arthur then led the group up several aisles of headstones by stating, "up . . . up . . . up," until he finally said, "stop." They stopped as he had instructed them to and the headstone in front of them was engraved with the name "Julia." Pretty cool, huh? Needless to say, we were thrilled to be going to the cemetery next. Unfortunately, after 30-40 minutes walking around we found zero evidence of Arthur or any other spirits.
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Creepy cemetery scene |
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"Arthur's" grave? |
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Meghan, Amy and Destiny in the cemetery
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Walking the grounds, from one destination to the next, was creepy and unnerving at times. We stayed huddled together, walking arm-in-arm most of the time. We were constantly on edge and on the lookout for anything out of the ordinary. While we never saw any apparitions, we sure had fun hunting for them!
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Meagan, Jessi and Alli walking the grounds |
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Jessi with her trusty flashlight |
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Eerie abandoned building |
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What might lie beyond that desolate window??? |
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Jessi, Meghan, Alli and Destiny stopping for a photo op |
Our next stop was the third floor of the main building, which once housed the classrooms of school-aged children living on the property. A small group of us went into a closet that has been known to have paranormal activity. We stood in a circle, and tried to summons a spirit . . . to no avail. We were striking out over and over again. :(
While on our third floor investigation, we befriended one of the guides and shared with him our desire to find some sort of concrete evidence of paranormal activity. For our next outing, he kindly took us to some of the other buildings on the grounds where he'd had previous experiences. These buildings were no longer part of the typical tour agenda as they were recently deemed structurally unsound and aspestos ridden. We were not allowed inside, but we walked the perimeters, peered through doorways and called out to the spirits within through broken out windows.
It was here, huddled outside one of these abandoned buildings, that we finally found what we were longing for. Our guide announced our presence to the spirits within, and using an EVP device waited for a response. He explained, "We wish we could come in there and talk with you, but we can't. So could you come to the window and talk with us?" Then we heard it. Through the static and white noise of the EVP recorder, a very clear and distinct, "Come . . . . in . . . " It caught us all off guard, and made our hearts race a little, but this was it! What we came for! And then, it was gone. That was it . . . two little words, but it made the entire experience worth it!
"I do believe in spooks, I do believe in spooks, I do, I do, I do, I do, I do believe in spooks!" Do you?
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Femmes outside the building where we made contact with the other side |
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Scared or scary? |
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