Seeking Beyond Paranormal

Reimer Private Residence

October 4-5, 2024

The Claims | Equipment and Setup | The Investigation |Our Results

When we started Seeking Beyond Paranormal, I knew this one was coming down the pipe eventually. We had scheduled a weekend at the Crescent Hotel for the weekend this investigation took place, but had to cancel it for a second time. We will get there eventually, but in the meantime, we still had the time off from work and opted to use it to visit my parents down in Mobile. This forward will be a bit different from our previous writeups, as it involves first-hand experiences.

This investigation is for the house my parents currently live in. I lived there for four years while I was in high school. We moved into the house sometime around 1999 as I wrapped up 8th grade. My father was wanting to move into a house where he could set up his business. He was already a private business owner, but renting office space until we finished building onto this new house. While I lived there, I personally did not experience anything in the house. In fact, I was the first one to sleep there, choosing to sleep there alone in my new room the night my parents closed on the house. It was a quiet, pleasant evening.

It wasn't until I was in college that I had my first (and second) paranormal experiences in the house. The first experience involved a phone call I had with a friend sometime between late 2003 and 2005. The call was seemingly interrupted by (frankly) a rather demonic-sounding voice, spewing a vulgarity-ridden message at me about how I was going to be killed by this person. My friend on the other end of the line didn't hear anything, and I figured if it was some convoluted prank by some random person driving down the street with some kind of fancy spy gadget to break into active phone calls, surely everyone on the line would hear it. At the time, I didn't know what to make of it, but I was severely freaked out by the incident, and I opted to keep quiet about it unless more information was revealed in some manner. Little did 19-year-old me know, but he'd become a paranormal investigator 20 years later, and a story would begin to unfold. I won't just haphazardly tell you it was some spirit, but the experience was absolutely genuine and 20 years later, I can still remember what that booming, gravely, deep voice sounded like. I still don't have an explanation for it. Since then, I have certainly heard of several paranormal incidents involving phones and phone lines, so all I'm saying is that the possibility of this experience having a paranormal origin is on the table.

My second paranormal experience in the house was a lot more light-hearted, literally speaking. This occurred sometime between 2005 and 2007 and I was still in college, visiting home for some holiday or a long weekend. It was early morning hours, and I was sleeping in my old room. There was a floor lamp right next to the head of the bed, and it had one of those twist-on/twist-off knob type switches. I distinctly remember this happening and my heart pounding like crazy, so I must have been awake from rolling over or adjusting my pillow when this happened. That lamp switched on. I don't just mean the bulb illuminated, I mean the knob turned twice and clicked to turn it on. No one else was in the room, it was just me and that lamp. I didn't know what to make of it, but despite the adrenaline rush from my pounding heart, I was still a sleepy college kid and didn't want to do anything other than cover my head and try to ignore it. A few minutes later, it switched itself back off. This wasn't some new fancy LED lamp with some kind of digital switch you could blame a faulty circuit on. I grew up seeing this lamp get toted around for years, it may have even been older than I was. It was as simple and analog as you could get, and that switch rotated twice to turn on, and rotated twice to turn off. Right above my head at 2am. This is actually the experience that caused me to really start building an interest in the paranormal.

Since that time, my parents have shared several experiences they've had over the years, and my mother recently revealed that there was a suicide in the house, and that the individual shot himself in what was my bedroom. I'll get to that below, but catching back up to present-day, my mother also recently made the offer to let us investigate the house since she knew we were really getting serious with this ghost hunting stuff. Initially they offered to stay in a hotel for the night to let us investigate alone, but they ended up asking to stay for the investigation. I have learned that some investigators see having the homeowners present as an advantage — the theory being that if spirits are present and activity occurs while the owners are there, perhaps the spirits' familiarity with the owners would allow for some trust in the investigators by proxy.

We (the Reimers) don't know if there was any activity occurring in the house prior to our residence there — everything we've experienced so far seems to have started after we moved in, and our collective interest in the paranormal hadn't developed at the time the house was purchased. Additionally, the research for this investigation revealed that the previous owners have all passed away, so there is no way of finding out if the paranormal activity was new to the house, or if we were just the next family to experience it. That being said, I was able to dig up some potentially useful information on DiedInHouse.com.

Up front, I'll say that DiedInHouse.com does state that the search results may be incomplete or inaccurate for any number of reasons. Some information may not be available in a way that DiedInHouse.com can source. I can tell you that the one death we are interested in is not shown on the report, but there is a name on the report we suspect to be that person. The report does list one on-site death, but after discussing it with my parents, it was revealed to be the death of a man involved in a motorcycle accident at the street corner in front of the house. My father was the first on the scene, and the initial 9-1-1 call for the accident was placed from our house. The report shows the death having occurred at the house, but likely only because that was the address associated with the police report. Beyond that, the report lists several other names associated with the house: Joseph (died 1996), Lynette (died 2000), Katie (died 2024), and Victor (died 1988), as well as my parents and myself. Katie was the previous owner of the house, and her nephew is the person who shot himself in the house. After discussing our research with my parents, all signs pointed to Victor being that nephew, and that was our starting point for the investigation.

The Claims

The claims of paranormal activity at the house run a pretty wide gamut. The lamp experience above seems to be recurring as my parents have reported other lamps in the room turning on over the years, as well as lamps near that bedroom. Worth noting here is that it's not just lamps that are plugged in — apparently a battery-powered camping lantern has been known to turn on and off while in that room, further suggesting paranormal cause over some mere electrical problem.

In addition to the lamp-related phenomena, a variety of sounds have been heard throughout the house. My old bedroom is right next to the main corridor of the house, and footsteps have been heard walking that portion of the house. In that same vicinity, my mother has heard the sound of two wooden boards clapping together on several occasions, as well as a distinct sigh or breath in her ear. Additionally, both of my parents have heard what sounds like the indecipherable din of multiple people talking coming from my father's office space. They've heard this sound from within the office as well as from the living room (about 2/3 down the length of the house away from the office). My mother reports that while going to check the sound out, the sound will immediately disappear the moment she touches the door knob while entering the office.

Lastly, a handful of apparition sightings have occurred in the house, mostly of a woman in a blue robe or night gown. She is seen in the kitchen area, and she's seen in this space from multiple vantage points elsewhere in the house. She can been seen through the door to the dining room walking back and forth in the kitchen, she can also be seen from my father's office pacing the same area, and she's even been briefly seen from within the kitchen itself, seated at a small counter that no longer exists. In the photo posted here, that counter would have been where that hutch is toward the left. Based on the accounts of her activity, the apparition seems to be going through her day and doesn't acknowledge either of my parents, suggesting it is some kind of residual activity.

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Equipment and Setup

We are slowly working on adding additional camera equipment to our kit. Previously, we had the Wyze motion-tracking security cameras, but a firmware update rendered them unable to work in the manner we hoped they would. Then, a pair of failed eBay transactions prevented us from having a pair of GoPros. However, I was able to finally add a dedicated video camera setup, and I plan on duplicating this exact setup so we can each run one and go full lights-out for investigations. The setup includes a DVcam camcorder capable of filming in IR, two extra IR light pods, a professional-grade Comica shotgun mic, and a vlogging-style hand grip with built-in tripod. The camera itself is cheap and it gulps down the battery, but it otherwise works well and can record in 4K. We did find out the camera can run off of external power, so a battery pack may work itself into the setup at some point for extended filming.

We ran the rest of our kit per usual which includes our REM Pod, MagLite Mini flashlights, catball toys, Olympus voice recorder, and our Spirit Box gear for Estes Method sessions. More info on these devices can be found on the Resources page. We also ran our new XLS camera on this investigation with more runtime and some screen recording.

Regarding the claims of apparitions in the kitchen area, we aren't quite ready for any kind of remote camera work. Technically we can do it, but it removes one camera from our usage. And with the irregularity that the woman in blue is seen, we weren't likely to catch a glimpse of her, let alone catch her roaming around on camera. So for this investigation, it just wasn't going to be feasible to include any attempts to see or film the woman in blue. However, with most of the remaining claims happening in the central corridor of the house, we decided to focus all our efforts there. We set out catballs on tables and cabinets, in doorways and on furniture. The REM Pod was set on the floor in that corridor for the first night and on the floor in my old bedroom for the second night. We had the XLS camera on the living room coffee table pointed into my old room, and we had a specific experiment set up in my old bedroom involving our video camera and our two smartphones.

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The Investigation

I mentioned early on that my parents wanted to stay for the investigation. However, they offered to leave us alone in the house for an hour or so to allow us to acclimate to the sounds of the house. While I did live there for four years, that was twenty years ago. With new appliances, fixtures, furniture, and anything else that could possibly make noise, from the perspective of paranormal investigators, we needed to treat this like it was a brand new space to us. It was a rather uneventful time, however. I heard a brief crackle type of sound in the living room with me, but it may have been a bug. Interestingly, I did hear some faint movement coming from the kitchen side of the house, but there wasn't anything identifiable about it. Jessica was in one of the bedrooms during this time, but didn't report hearing anything unusual. I'll go ahead and mention this here (we actually did this part a bit later into the evening), but we did an EMF sweep checking light switches, outlets, and appliances looking for any wild amounts of electromagnetic energy that could possibly account for some of the claims, but didn't find anything out of the ordinary. The only things that triggered our EMF meters were a single GFI outlet in the living room, and part of the HVAC unit in the kitchen.

While my parents were still out of the house, Jessica and I set up an experiment in my old bedroom. Since that's where the freaky phone call interruption occurred, I wanted to see if we could catch anything over the phone. The idea was that if some spirits can use white noise, radio waves, or phone signals to communicate, then having an open phone line might give any present spirits a means to send us a message. We fumbled through the setup, mainly trying to find a good distance where the two phones wouldn't pick up each other and cause an audio feedback loop. But the general setup was one phone (on speaker phone) in the bedroom, and the other in the living room with an active phone call between the two. We positioned our video camera in the bedroom looking at the phone so that the camera audio might pick up anything that came through the phone speaker. Then we just left it running while we continued setting equipment out and starting other aspects of the investigation. Video of that can be seen below.

Naturally, nothing came of the experiment. No mysterious call interruptions, not even any interaction with the catball next to the phone. But there's any number of reasons why we didn't get any results here. Probably the best answer is that the original call in question was possibly broken into somehow, I just don't know how that may have happened. And I'm still left wondering why the person on the other end of the line didn't hear anything. I'm also left wondering why the voice sounded the way it did. It's difficult to explain, especially 20 years later, and I know that's sort of a cop out here. That being said, if we look for possible paranormal reasons why we didn't get any results, maybe that has something to do with it — it happened 20 years ago. Trying to get something potentially paranormal to jump on a phone call at random and without any sort of preparation on our part is just hasty methodology at best. Another possibility might have to do with the type of phone lines involved: this experiment utilized a pair of iPhones on a modern 4G network, while the original call was on some early cellular network between old Nokia brick-style cell phones. If we're talking paranormal theories, there may be some functional difference in the frequencies or energies involved. Who knows? All I can say is that this experiment was inconclusive, but worth the effort.

Regarding experiments, we also ran the XLS camera (in SLS mode) most of the evening. As of this writeup, I haven't registered or purchased the screen-recording software on the tablet, so we can only record 10-minute clips to the device. It wouldn't have mattered this time around anyways, sad to say, as we didn't catch any mysterious stick figures wandering around. However, it was a great learning experience because we discovered what flying bugs look like on the screen. In the GIF you see here, you'll see a little black mass fly in a tight arc toward the top of the screen. We didn't see any flying bugs inside the house at all while we were there, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. The investigation we did a few nights later at Pauly Jail confirmed that this is what little bugs look like through the SLS camera, as they were a lot more prevalent in that location. Additionally, we learned that you can have too many people and objects in the room and it will map stick figures all over, regardless of whether there are reflective surfaces or not. So there are definitely more ideal locations to run the XLS/SLS.

One of the more exciting moments of the investigation was when one of the catballs turned on. We had several catballs scattered around the living room and dining room, in doorways, on furniture, and so on. At one point in the evening, the one we placed on the dining room table turned on. A moment or two later, we heard the distinct sound of the catball's plastic shell make some kind of impact sound. It didn't fall off the table, nor was it rolling around. It was loud enough to catch our attention, and we even tried to get the catball glowing on camera. Unfortunately, it happened between filming sessions, so we didn't catch it on camera. It was an interesting experience, though, and at least my parents got to see the catball go off.

The next major part of the investigation was a pair of Estes Method sessions. As a quick reminder, the Estes Method is a way of using a Spirit Box (an AM/FM radio modified to cycle through all available radio channels rapidly) that introduces sensory deprivation to remove as much bias from the listener as possible. The methodology is based on the long-standing theory that spirits can manipulate or use radio waves to communicate. Since we were really focused on my old bedroom as being sort of the epicenter of the house's activity, I wanted to go under first. My session had a few interesting responses, but nothing really sounded like a cohesive back-and-forth between Jessica's questions and my responses. However, Jessica's session was incredible. Not only did most of the questions and responses form what sounded like a conversation of sorts, but we caught three EVPs, two of which are the best we've caught so far. Below is a video of that second Estes Method session.

While the answers aren't a grammatically perfect question-and-response type of conversation, the responses were just a bit too on-point for the little bit of Victor's story that we do know. It's entirely possible that this is all just random, but "What happened?" "I see that now." Mom? Dad? Regret! Victor being a nephew to the homeowner Katie suggests that Mom and Dad may have been out of the picture in some manner, and the the topic of suicide always seems to be entangled with regret. While it's not remotely good scientific methodology, it's a little too compelling to be 100% pure coincedence. Perhaps we were just engaging with that ancient instinct of ours of finding patterns, or perhaps Victor was telling us his story. We will leave up to my parents to decide — which is more meaningful to their paranormal situation?

That being said, in terms of evidence collection, to get any EVPs is always exciting. But to get three EVPs in relatively quick succession is absolutely incredible. The first and third EVPs are so loud and clear you can even hear them in the camera audio, adding to the excitement. Moreover, hearing that third EVP was so exciting I audibly gasped when I heard it, and I'm rarely that emotive (outside of laughter). It's so loud that I didn't even need to dial up the gain on it (though, I did so anyways to really emphasize how loud and clear it is). While you don't hear a full word, it's such a unique Q-U-I sound with such a breathy, vocal quality to it that anyone would be hard-pressed to explain it away as just some kind of background noise. I'm pretty sure it doesn't meet most of the criteria for being a Class-A EVP by any means, but as something a pair of novice investigators captured with some basic recording equipment, I'm definitely impressed by it. My sister-in-law Sherrie (head of the Wichita Paranormal Research Society) suggested it may have been a disembodied voice because it was so loud and showed up on multiple pieces of equipment, but none of us heard it in the moment. Either way — EVP or disembodied voice — an incredible capture.

The last bit of our investigation was a flashlight session wherein we could attempt to have a conversation with any spirits that were present using a pair of small twist-on/off flashlights for basic yes and no responses. As it will be explained in the video below, the first half of our flashlight session was reasonably coherent, but the session seemed to lose steam halfway through. Interestingly, though, the first half of the session seems to suggest that whoever we were talking to was female and lived in the house, but did not die in the house, and was seemingly aware of the situation (Spoiler alert: The very last response in the video below even suggests they could see us). Of the names on our list from DiedInHouse.com, only Lynette and Katie fit the answers given. My mother told us at one point that Katie actively disliked the house, so of the two, I'd guess we may have been talking to Lynette. It's difficult to say with any certainty, though, because the DiedInHouse.com records could very well be incomplete.

This was actually the first of two flashlight sessions we conducted at the house. The second session was conducted the following evening, and it was a totally different experience. Unfortunately, we don't have any video of this second session — it was unplanned and we wanted it to be a more casual evening. We only got a few coherent answers at the start of the session, and the little bit of information we gleaned was that we were talking to a male that lived in the house. Very quickly, however, the responses seemed to only favor one flashlight. We verified that all the flashlights did work, so battery power wasn't an issue. Eventually we asked if this spirit liked any of the flashlights, and we got a very solid, very bright YES response. As you will have seen in the video above, the flashlights typically exhibit a slow, strained activation, suggesting that it's rather difficult to turn on and off. Comparatively, when the flashlight turns on quickly with no flickering, you can infer a powerful or excited response was given. The more we talked about liking one of the flashlights, the more activity we got, and we even started to get a few coherent yes/no responses. Ultimately, the questions led to whether or not this spirit wanted us to leave one of the flashlights at the house to be "their" flashlight, and the answers even revealed which flashlight they favored. So to cap off the investigation, we left one of the flashlights at the house, and my parents introduced themselves to any spirits that may have been present and interactive. Since we left, my mother has reported a bit of additional flashlight activity.

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Our Results

One of the first things I learned about investigating is to go into an investigation expecting nothing to happen. It's a good practice and helps you focus on your methodology and debunking skills. Having a personal connection to this house, though, meant that there was a bit of ego on the line, considering the experiences I've had here and how long my parents and I have talked about our belief that the house was haunted. On this investigation, the possibility of nothing happening felt more like any potential paranormal presence was going to make fools out of us for talking to nothing in a dark room. I'm glad (and relieved) to say that the activity we captured exceeded any and all expectations we could have hoped for. Naturally, seeing the woman in blue would have blown our minds, but as far as the claims went, I'd say the gettin' was pretty good.

In conclusion, it was a very interesting investigation, and even moreso after reviewing our findings! For being our first modern private residence, it was nice to go in without any tasks to complete. We definitely want to help people they may be fearful of any activity in their home. In this instance, however, my parents didn't express any concern over the activity they've witnessed, so it was nice to simply shed light on what was only experienced in private before. While Victor's story is certainly tragic and heartbreaking part of the house's history, it was overall an enjoyable experience and a nice way to spend some time with my parents showing them what we've been doing for the last year. We'd like to humbly thank my parents, Ferol and Allen, for letting us investigate and hopefully reveal some of the hidden history of their house.

And Mom, Dad — your house is haunted.

by David Reimer, posted October 16, 2024

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Who We Are

Seeking Beyond Paranormal is a team of paranormal investigators based in Huntsville, Alabama. First started as a fun way to visit some of the country’s most haunted locations, Seeking Beyond now explores the realm of paranormal investigation.

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