Young Souls at Play

There are days, sometimes even just moments in our lives, when something happens to change your life forever. September 21, 2017 will always be that day for me. That’s the day I first experimented with ghost hunting. Ghost hunting is the search by us, living man, for the proof of an after-life and/or spiritual energy after we die. I, however, was completely unprepared for the journey I was embarking on. Was I lucky to have the encounters and experiences that follow, considering this story begins with my first attempt at ghost hunting or paranormal investigation of any kind? Yes. Did I work relentlessly to document evidence and rule out any outside causes of that evidence? Yes. Did I learn of the accidental tragic death of two boys from spirit voices and other gathered evidence? Yes. Was my evidence completely validated by a stranger I had never met before in a room full of witnesses? Yes. So, am I one-hundred percent sure I documented some kind of life after death? Yes. Well ninety-nine percent at least. My story is one-hundred percent fact and only names and exact locations were changed or omitted to protect everyone’s privacy.

My journey with the paranormal coincided with a family death coincidentally. The passing of a close family member, that I had spent time caring for while sick, had me searching for a new hobby, a release, a way to re-focus my life. I wanted to use the overwhelming feelings I had to better myself, not fall in to depression. I was intent on that. This led to ghost hunting. You see, a friend of mine already owned some paranormal research gear and had traveled to a few haunted locations and had some experiences with what she considered paranormal activity. We had talked about her experiences, but her equipment was put away for another day. I was and still am a huge fan of the paranormal shows featuring cool investigators in creepy locations that have been on television for years now, but I had never purchased any equipment or been out in the field to do my own research. So, on a lazy fishing day in September, just three days after my family’s loss, I uttered the words that would change my life forever, “Let’s go ghost hunting!” With that being said, a night was planned, my friend’s equipment pulled out and charged, and a destination was mapped. A test run of equipment at a local, rural cemetery. That is where I would get my feet wet! This is where I would start to understand what they do on the paranormal investigation shows and videos that are posted throughout the world. Now it would be my turn, I thought. Just a regular guy documenting evidence without the drama, the intrigue, without the story line. Little did I know that the evidence would be telling the story of drama and intrigue!

We planned a night. September 21, 2017. We had other buildings in town we wanted to investigate, so this would be a perfect chance to shakedown and use the equipment before we got to the real investigations. A learning experience. Boy, was I right! Our ground zero was a local, rural cemetery located just outside town. Nearing 150 years old, this large cemetery is surrounded on three sides by forestry and a lake. The fourth side is outlined by a cornfield then three rural houses and more cornfields close to a half mile away. There are only entrance lights on the road in front and a large flagpole stands in the very center. Bottom line is, this cemetery is remote. It is dark, and quiet for most part. Away from cars and people, especially after dark. Although that night would start a passion that now envelopes my life, it wasn’t super eventful. But what happened to me that night ensured I had more questions and a burning desire to find more answers.

As we started our walk through the cemetery with only a couple devices, our first deduction was that our night vision cameras were going to capture little to nothing in this huge, dark cemetery. We had no extra lighting, so just using the factory infrared light was not going to pierce this darkness. It was evident this was going to be more an attempt at communication or documentation of an experience, or maybe recording unexplained energy fluctuations. Armed with a generic EMF (Electromagnetic Field) detector and a SB7 spirit box, we began to settle in and search for evidence. The SB7 spirit box is an AM/FM transmitter designed to scan back and forth and at different speeds through radio frequencies never stopping. Used without an antenna, this device creates a hissing-like “white noise” that investigators have tried to prove allows spirit voices a frequency to transmit their speech through. From my knowledge of television and some research, I knew that most investigators use the FM frequency and scan it backwards at a pretty high rate of speed, usually 3 to 4 frequencies per second. That’s the way I would do it then, I decided. EMF detectors can record electromagnetic energy that may be prevalent in an area and help search for fluctuations or “spikes” in that energy. Spirit energy is thought to be made up of at least some electromagnetic energy. My first possible bit of evidence came from these “spikes” at a family plot near the entrance of the cemetery, where I believed myself in possible interaction with the patriarch of the family. I wasn’t quite ready for the SB7 spirit box yet, but I did receive what seemed like timely responses to my simple questions through EMF spikes on my detector. Intrigued, I continued documenting my first session, finished, gathered my equipment and continued wandering deeper into the dark cemetery. I walked about a third of the way towards the tree-lined back of the cemetery, my EMF detector silent the whole time. Then, just as I walked past a couple’s grave site, my detector began to spike or fluctuate again, for no apparent reason. No power source or lights around. Nothing. Huh, I wondered? I began another simple attempt to talk to the possible spirits of this grave site using their names and trying to create dialog. It appeared to be working. Again, I was receiving EMF spikes that appeared to be in a timely fashion to the questions I was asking. Communication? What I did next changed things forever. I turned on the SB7 spirit box. I set it to scan backwards at a high rate of speed, attached a speaker and began an attempt to open up dialogue with this possible energy fluctuation. Recording with a night vision video camera, I began documenting and continued trying to communicate using the deceased’s names and dates of death and the surroundings as trigger words to provoke an intelligent answer. Next to the couple’s headstone was a wooden cut-out of an angel staked in the ground. Weathered and unadorned, I wanted to show this floating angel with ribbon like hair in my video. So, processing the words slightly ahead of time in my brain so my video production would look and sound more professional, I decided as I was going to describe the angel as “pretty”. As I panned the camera left and opened my mouth to talk, the spirit box which has produced nothing but white noise until this time, clearly spoke the word “pretty” or “pretties”! Although my heart raced and I was dumbfounded, I somehow continued to say exactly what I was going to say, with a slight chuckle even, before I was clearly interrupted. “And here’s her pretty angel”, I documented. Had someone stolen the word out of my mouth? That’s exactly how I felt. I knew I was going to say that word as my next adjective. Unbelievable! I was shook! I’m not going to lie. The thought that something I couldn’t see and didn’t understand could have been right there in the moment with me, stealing words from my mouth had me blown away. To this day, that moment remains as an amazing piece of evidence in my mind. It set off so many questions on so many levels spiritually and intellectually for me. My passion was ignited from that point on! And there was so much more to come! The rest of the night went by pretty uneventfully, except for the chance discovery of the newer grave site of a sibling of an acquaintance. I never knew the guy, but knew his name, Dave Reardon, and how he died. I stopped and paid my respects to him and received multiple electromagnetic field fluctuations which again seemed appropriately spaced and timed to my verbal communication. I would have to investigate this further. But that night was getting late and we had to leave. That ghost hunt, my first ghost hunt, was over. But the effects would and still linger on.

Two weeks passed before I could return to the cemetery. During this time, I scoured my video recordings from my first experience searching for more paranormal evidence. I found none. The only evidence I had gathered was the word “pretty” being uttered at that particular moment from the spirit box and the multiple EMF spikes at the three different grave sites. I replayed the whole evening in my head over and over and planned for how I would approach and do some things differently the next time. That chance came and a mutual friend joined us, for the night, making it three investigators on our return trip. Starting about dusk, like we had our first outing, we cantered off with mostly the same minimal gear used during the first visit. I had acquired a fairly inexpensive audio recorder and was prepared to record on it also. The night was pretty uneventful, or so it seemed. Weather wasn’t bad. Wind was pretty still. But the EMFfluctuations weren’t there like the last time and the spirit box didn’t have a whole lot to say. I, of course , ventured to the first two sites I had experienced the activity at two weeks ago and we also trekked into some virgin territory for us. Not much going on. Pretty silent. Then I decided to show our mutual friend the newer grave site I had found just before leaving last time. The grave is at the very back of the cemetery, which is lined with woods and brush, and close to the far right of the cemetery, which has the lake on its border. This corner of the cemetery is the farthest away from any human contamination. As we neared the grave, I began recording on my audio recorder and video recorder. I also decided I was going to use the spirit box again, although most of the night it had been silent. Just the two of us commenced in a communication attempt session as my other friend was trailing behind doing her own thing. We were able to receive a few inconclusive verbal messages through the spirit box, however the EMF detector went off like crazy during this session. Multiple times during our questions, we witnessed fluctuations that were what would be considered strong. But everything happened so fast, and I was so new to it all. Not much other than that stuck out at the time as being paranormal. So, my second visit to this cemetery was over. Now I would take my audio and video recordings home to evaluate using a free trial of video software I had downloaded recently. Over the next couple days, I listened and watched every bit of audio and video recorded on the second visit. I didn’t find much paranormal in any of it, but tried real hard to figure out what was being said when we arrived at the last grave site and started up the spirit box. I listened. And listened. Something wasn’t exactly right. As I had started my session at Dave Reardon’s grave with my friend, I had said his name out loud. Asking for him so to speak. “Dave Reardon” I had said strongly. The video shows that the EMF detector was going crazy with fluctuations at this time. The next words uttered by us were by my friend who was feet away. “Are you here?” He responded, apparently to the EMF spikes. The conversation and EMF spikes continued, but what was recorded on my video recorder and audio recorder after I said “Dave Reardon” is really where this story began. “Reardon, Dave Reardon!” I could here it! Clearly! It was really prevalent on the video that was taken. The voice was not mine. It sounded close, however, to the video camera like my voice. My friends voice could obviously be detected as farther away from the microphone than mine. My other friend was no where near, so how would her voice show up closer than the other friends? Plus, she had never been to this gentleman’s grave. I found it alone last time. She would have to have heard what I said and instantly repeated it even though she had never heard it before? And her voice would have been real faint. This made no sense. This voice was close. It also wasn’t deep. Maybe a woman or adolescent? And why was it said in that order? Pretty much ruled out an echo, even though I was near water “Reardon, Dave Reardon”? Military roll-call? School attendance? Who says that? Was someone mocking me? Who said it? How did it get on my recording devices? I had to find out. I was going back. And soon.

Unfortunately, it was a few days until I could make it back to the cemetery. My original friend no longer wanted to work investigations at cemeteries due to outdoor contamination, so this actually gave me a little time to get another couple pieces of equipment for my own usage. Also my teen children were showing interest in what I was doing, so my return visit included two of them. We picked a horrible night to visit. It was windy, cold and almost miserable for late fall. I clearly remember the kids wearing gloves through part of the night. We checked out all the spots that I had experienced activity including the very first family plot I had received the EMF spikes. I had researched the family a bit and was introducing the kids to each member. I attempted to run audio recording and video at each spot. The spirit box wasn’t active with any words and it was freezing outside, so we quickly called it a night and got back home. With not much data to review, I dove right in and started replaying my recordings. I started with audio. Mostly nothing, except for a huge skip in the session at the family plot. Huh? Played it again. I’m sure it skipped, I thought. You could hear there were words missing from my sentence. Ok? I would then check the video recording to see what I really said and how much was missing. Sure enough, words were missing. The audio had skipped. And I could hear something deep and faint in the background of the video recording. A voice or singing ? Something. I listened more and increased the volume slightly with my software. “Off the” something? I listened one more time. “Get off the grave!” I was frozen, staring at theaudio file on the computer screen. This EVP or electronic voice phenomena, which is a noise recorded but not heard live in the moment with human ears, was on the video recorder at the exact same moment as the skip on my audio recorder. Unbelievable! Did the energy of the EVP cause the skip in the recorder? And we were standing, with respect I might add, on the family plot, learning there names and ages and such! Three times I had been to this cemetery and each time I was gathering evidence of possible communication! This in itself was amazing! But it was time to zero in on some of these voices. And I knew exactly where I was going to start.

I was heading back to Dave Reardon’s grave. This time alone and during the calm, late morning, just days after my night visit with the kids. November was starting and I planned on taking advantage of all the mild, calm days I could before winter set in. Armed with my usual gear at this point, an EMF detector, audio recorder, video recorder, and spirit box, I pulled in and parked my van near the back corner of the cemetery, hopped out and started documenting not only Dave Reardon’s grave site, but others around it. The whole area really. Back and forth through rows of the deceased, I paid my respects and asked pertinent questions about names, dates, and surroundings, in hope for voices on the recorders when I listened again. I paid particular attention to military personnel nearby, because the “Reardon, Dave Reardon”EVP had me questioning why the response like that. Last name then full name? It was a beautiful day and I listened and looked for anything out of the ordinary. Nothing. After about forty minutes, I decided to head home and listen to the recordings. Would I find more voices on them? It wouldn’t take long to find the answer to that question. Approximately thirteen minutes into my video recording, as I am stopped and viewing a grave, Iheard the word “Hi” clear as day. Again I listen multiple times, comparing other outdoor sounds. Nope, not a bird or a clank of the flagpole, it is the word “Hi” and it sounded like someone meant it like they wereintroducing themselves. It sounded real. Shocked, I could only continue viewing and listening to the rest of the video and audio. Grave after grave, I walkedrecording with my video camera each individual’s grave site. I was almost to a very beautiful headstone adorned with a miniature statue of Mary, mother of Jesus. I remembered this, I thought as I watched. I stopped and filmed the beautiful sculpture. Then to my amazement, as I focused on her face, it happened again. Even stronger! Even clearer! “Hi”! This was crazy. No way I thought, as I reviewed and reviewed the audio to figure what might have caused it. I couldn’t debunk it. I was the only one in the cemetery at the time and at the farthest point away from any people if there werepeople! The next question that came to my mind was who is this? It surely wasn’t Mary! She would have a lot more to say to me than “Hi”, I decided. These voices again were not deep. They did not appear female though. No femininity at all. In my studies, I had heard adolescents and females can be deciphered from male voices easier than from each other. So was this an adolescent? Also on this trip there were no echoes or repetition of my words even though I was near the lake as I was during the “Reardon, Dave Reardon” EVP. All this information was making me crazy! What was going on? Obviously, I was going back again ( and again!).

Over the next couple weeks, I was able to visit the cemetery three times. I picked late mornings as my times while my kids were in school. I pretty much kept my routine the same. I parked my van in the same place. Visited the same areas, sometimes trying to initiate conversation with different deceased individuals within that area of the cemetery. Then I would race home and review the footage. During these visits, I also had the weird feeling that someone or something was watching me from my own van. So I started recording video and audio inside my vehicle while I was investigating also. Would you believe there was at least one clear EVP on each visit along with sounds from the interior of the van that shouldn’t have been happening. I swear a couple of times it sounded like the glove box was open and shut, but I could never catch it actually happening visually. One of the EVPs I received in the cemetery over this time period was “It’s him.” Another was my name , “Fred”. I had introduced myself at various grave sites so maybe this showed intelligence? The third was yet another introductory “Hello”. I began to be a little obsessed with figuring out what was going on. I for sure felt like something intelligent was out there with me. But I didn’t quite have proof. So I was going back, again!

My daytime visits were unannounced to anyone. No one knew I was going to be at the cemetery at the times I had received my evidence. There was absolutely no way anyone was pulling a trick on me. I was perplexed and needed a plan. So as I headed on my little seven mile drive to the cemetery, I turned up the stereo and fell in to a bit of a daze. Quiet with my own thoughts, I decided that was the key. Being quiet! I would document my whole routine of scouring the cemetery, without saying a word. I would be as quiet as I could be. That would rule out echoes, other sounds I might have caused, basically taking the energy of my voice out of the equation. I began recording on my audio recorder and video camera over a quarter-mile from the entrance of the cemetery. This would have been about a half-mile from the back corner of the cemetery where I was experiencing most of the activity. The cemetery was again totally empty as I approached. I rapidly expedited my plan. I parked, walked, and recorded just like before. Same graves. Same actions. Except, I didn’t say a word. Finally after an eerie twenty minutes, I did say my hello’s to any prevailing spirits and thanked them for letting me visit and quickly headed home. Now, I thought, if I captured a voice without me saying anything to stimulate it, I would have something to go on? We would just have to see. I downloaded the recordings into my computer and started the process of review. Earphones on, I began to watch and listen. Quiet so far. I was parking, getting out of the van, and now you could predominately only hear my footsteps as I plodded to the same destination I had started my visits with for a month now, Dave Reardon’s grave in the back corner of the cemetery. I was almost there. Crunch, crunch. Every footstep accentuated on this peaceful, still day. I was four steps away from his gravewhen I heard a noise out of nowhere. In fact, multiple noises! It sounded like words! Voices! Not deep voices. Higher pitched but not female. My heart rate intensified as I honed in on the sound. I increased the volume slightly. Oh my God! It sounded like Dave Reardon’s name again! I could hear Reardon clearly! I again boosted the volume a tad and listened as hard as I could. “Talking to Dave Reardon, again!” What? I remember shaking at this time and my heart fluttering in shock! My mind became a fog. I listened more. I checked my audio recording of the same footage. Unbelievable! You could definitely hear it on both devices! I had not muttered a sound in over 15 minutes, miles of silence, and this voice just appears and knows where I am walking to and that I have been here before, I thought! I listened again and again. So much that I became clearly convinced that a second voice had said the “again”. It wasn’t necessarily a different voice that I could tell, this was still an adolescent I was presuming, but it seemed the “again” was an interjection and not part of the “Talking to Dave Reardon” sentence. I was and am still this day overwhelmed with this EVP. It is simply one of the most intense, intelligent recordings I have ever been able to document. It would seem to clearly show intelligence in some energy form that we can’t see. I had captured the evidence I was searching for! Proof of paranormal! Something that we have simply have no explanation for on this planet yet. Somehow I had thought this would satisfy. But it didn’t. Now I was full of unanswered questions, but still passionate about finding the answers.

All these voices. What did they mean? I was gathering at least one EVP every time I visited and most were in a very confined area. So much so, that I actually drew a map of the corner of the cemetery and plotted the exact area of every EVP I had received. Seven EVPs recorded within a six row by six row area of graves. This was unbelievable! A definite hot spot or energy band, I remembered thinking. I was obsessed by this point. It was already December, by a few days, and I knew the nice weather was not going to hold out. I wasn’t going to be able to continue this investigation for much longer with the elements being a major factor. I again racked my brain for ideas on how to capture more of what was going on there, maybe even when I wasn’t there. I didn’t have access to trail cams and I couldn’t figure any way to get decent video footage in such a vast, dark area. I would have to be satisfied with audio recordings. What if I left an audio recorder running all night right in the middle of this supposed hot spot for communication I had found? Just maybe I would catch something pertinent. I didn’t think twice. I charged my recorder and checked the internal memory. I assessed that the battery and memory would last over twelve hours. So on December 3, 2017, I started that now familiar drive to my favorite cemetery to place my recorder out for an overnight recording. I reached the cemetery, parked and walked towards the “bulls-eye” I had marked on my hand-drawn map. Many of the grave markers in this area are flat. The low in temperature for the night was expected to be in the low forties’s and I really didn’t know if condensation in the morning would create a problem. My worries were erased as I walked further and saw a small, half-moon shaped cement bench near one of the grave stones. I remembered that being there. I just didn’t realize it was almost on my “bull’s-eye”! Perfect. I would sit the recorder under the bench on the little cement slab it sat on. I made it to the bench and started my recorder and pressed record. Red light was on and time of recording had started. All good. I placed the recorder gently under the bench and left the cemetery before the seven o’clock hour had past. My heart pounded! Now to try to get some sleep before morning. That would prove difficult.

I remember tossing and turning and waking many times that night. I couldn’t wait to pick up my recorder and listen to the audio. Somehow I managed to make it until about six a.m., then proceeded to make the drive again to the cemetery. It was still dark. There was no condensation on my van and the temperature had not fallen below forty. The recorder should have made it without trouble, I thought. I arrived at the cemetery and entered the same way as always. I parked and walked to the bench. I could see the red light on the recorder as I approached. It was still recording. Awesome! I grabbed it and headed to the van. Once back in the vehicle, I pushed stop and saved the recording! Over twelve and a half hours of audio now needed listened to. I couldn’t wait to start. I headed home and began to listen. The whole process of listening to a twelve hour recording diligently takes a few days, especially when you have another life outside of paranormal investigation. I took my time and listened to every moment of the recording. My recorder is very sensitive. My footsteps leaving the recorder and my footsteps as I approach to pick-up the recorder in the morning sounded like dinosaurs tromping through the woods. The other noise captured at various times all evening is the train going through this small town. You can actually hear the vibration and tell by sound which direction it is heading. Bottom line, the recorder has a very sensitive microphone. Other than the trains and my footsteps and some slight rustlings and clicks in the recorder, there were only two items of sound the whole evening. One was what sounds like a short growl and squeal of an animal. It sounded like it came from the wooded area, and I ascertain that this would be an absolute normal sound to hear in this area. The only area of questionable or paranormal sounds came just before ten p.m. There were no footsteps or car doors or any noises prior to this capture. Theses noise basically originated out of thin air. Here is exactly what I recorded. “Phew (pause) Phew phew (pause) Phew! (pause) You kill(ed) me.” This was insane! I listened again, noticing that the gun sounds were not static. They sounded like they came from different spots each time. Also I listened many times to the sound of gun shots. They weren’t real for sure and they almost sounded like they were being made by mouth like we all have done. No! Careful listening suggests that it was a mechanical sound of some kind. Possibly a toy gun, but nothing newer for sure. An older play gun? Also the voice saying “you kill me!”? When do you get to say that in life? Never! Video games maybe? No, I couldn’t think of a game that would end like that. The only thing that struck accord with me was kids playing. Kids playing cowboys and Indians or cops and robbers as I did growing up. This was simply an amazing capture. There was simply no explanation to how these sounds got into the cemetery. Still, I was left with questions. What exactly had I captured? My mind immediately was churning, searching the clues. I had a grave site in mind. It was in the bull’s-eye of activity. On the headstone was the picture of a teen-age boy. He had died in the early to mid nineties. I needed his name and wasn’t sure I could find it quickly on my video files. So, jumping in the van again, video camera in hand, I headed off to the cemetery again. I was completely obsessed by now and could only think about getting to this person’s grave and documenting his name. You can see from my return video that I walk right to the row that my audio recorder had sat just nights before and I start filming only graves away from his. Then like I have been drawn to his grave, I finally say hi to this young man as I stand feet from his headstone. I recorded his stone and headed home. I would research his obituary and go from there. I am still in awe at what I found out next!

I returned home and frantically downloaded my video into the computer. Then I watched the video I had just taken and wrote down the name of the young man whose grave I had just been at. I then grabbed my phone, hit google and entered his name looking for an obit. None. However, as I scrolled only a bit I saw a heading for a U.S. Supreme Court case involving this kid’s name. I clicked and began to read. There had been a tragic, accidental death more than twenty years ago in this town the cemetery was in. It involved two teen-age boys who had gone to play after school and never returned home. They had unfortunately succumb to the elements after being stranded and stuck outside in rainy, muddy conditions. The lawsuit I was reading involved the insurance company of the landholder and the insurance company of the kid’s. That meant nothing to me, but that the details of this long ago event were still at my fingertips was very much a stroke of luck. My heart was beating! I was sweating ! Nerves in my body were on end and my limbs were nearly shaking! I was learning of two tragic deaths from sounds I heard in a cemetery where one of the two boys is buried! Unbelievable! No live human being had ever shared this story with me or made me aware of any part of this event! And I had already deciphered a theory based on the evidence I had received in the past months that led me to believe I was encountering two adolescents playing at times! I was shook to the core and still am to this day! I knew when I read the story online that I is was a good possibility I was interacting with these two boys’ spirits. I didn’t know or even care, I guess, if I could ever prove it. I only wanted to be sure. I wanted to know with every bit of my heart, mind and soul that something was out there and that I could prove who and what it was! So, I grabbed the phone and called that mutual friend. His father had been a local resident for years and worked for many of the law enforcement agencies nearby. Maybe he would remember this tragic story, I thought. He did! And to add irony to the story, he was the first one to the scene when they found the boys but was out of jurisdiction, thus waited for others to administer the scene! The information he provided to me was startling however. Not only did he verify the story I had just read online, but he provided location of the scene. Less than a mile from where I was recording them! This was crazy! They were local kids that didn’t live far and they had left after school playing or fishing or something and never came home. They were found not more than one hundred yards from their homes, I believe. Digesting this information and waiting on my girlfriend to get home so I could share the details with her may have been the craziest thirty minutes of my life. My heart beat so fast. My head swarmed with information and details. I was astounded and still am to say the least! My girlfriend only remembered the story after some prodding and dangling of information. I had to remind her of it and I didn’t live here then nor had I talked to another living person about this event! I was convinced and still am of what I had discovered. But there was more to the story!

I was able to return to the cemetery a couple of times before old man winter and Christmas arrived. I wished all the deceased I had been visiting for months Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays! Furthermore, I asked the boys to play with me and recorded another session inside my van while I was away visiting graves. I also was lucky enough to record another full night at the cemetery before freezing temps set in. Nothing captured in any of these visits or extended stays added anything new to the now mounting list of evidence I have shared. There were voices, but inaudible to the point of making out what was said. The weather was deteriorating too, of course, so the wind was making a difference in outdoor recordings by then. There were definitely things that happened during the second overnight recording that were out of place. Noises. Movement without having any approach noise. But nothing evidence-wise more concrete than what I had gathered already. Winter had come and this story would have to be over for now, I thought. And so it did end. For awhile. I continued during the winter and early spring feeding my now ignited passion for the paranormal. I traveled to a public ghost hunt and met one of my paranormal investigator heroes! I started and continued an investigation of paranormal activity in my town that lasted a full year. I found a new partner and started a paranormal investigation team. And our new team had just acquired a new haunt, one that would lead us to hosting our own public ghost hunts in the fall. Things were good, great even. But I couldn’t take my mind off the boys. So, in late May of 2018, I finally returned to the cemetery, the site of this story and where I fell in love with the paranormal and the thought of our energy somehow continuing to be able to manifest after death. The evidence had me convinced that I knew who and what it was. Two boys. Young souls at play. The voices and locations had led me to the grave. The recordings of playing and the time period of the toy gun sounds, the thought of playful mocking and the hint of adolescent voices had led me to this boy’s grave. The story of their death led me to why they were still in the area, because they lived, played and died nearby and frequented the area. And the whole time I kept questioning myself about this story, I kept reminding myself that no one told me about this terrible accident. I discovered it. It was a lot to think about as I retraced my footsteps from last fall and winter. Saying hello to everyone and even trying to make a couple new friends. I zigzagged through the graves. Nothing happened or was heard out of the ordinary until again after I returned home and had downloaded my recordings to my computer and started listening with my headphones. The first EVP was “Fred” being said loudly right in front of my face, again male adolescent, but no one was there. And I hadn’t introduced myself to anyone this visit. The next EVP was a repeat of another and one of their favorite sayings, I guess, “It’s him”! However, this EVP was moving when it went by the recording device. You can clearly hear it fly or run by. The third and last EVP was inaudible as far as intelligence but was received at the young man’s grave site right after I asked him a question and cleaned his headstone. They obviously remembered me after five months! That in itself was incredible evidence, I thought! By now, as I shared earlier, my life and paranormal passion were going off in different directions. I wanted to do more experiments there. Still do to this day. However, it wasn’t meant to be, I guess. So as of the time this story was printed, I have not been back to the cemetery. But what was meant to be was the end of this story. It continues to amaze me!

I mentioned that our team was lucky enough to host public ghost hunting events in the little town I reside in. We held one in September and October. Our guests were mostly local folk, gathered through my newly formed website and paid donations to this historical building for an opportunity to ghost hunt with my team and hear our stories. In October, at our second public event, in a room full of twenty people, I began to share just a small portion of this story that started me full force into the paranormal world. I had been asked by a guest to tell a little of it. I didn’t mind obliging. I had never told the story publicly and began slowly without names or places identified. As my story went on, I noticed a woman in the middle row had tears in her eyes and her face was a little red. I asked her if she wanted me to stop telling the story and she replied “No.” I continued speaking and by this time I heard her whisper the boys’ names to her friend nearby. She knew the story! I glanced at her, for approval, and she nodded and I took the story to the part about the overnight recording and the sounds of boys possibly playing with guns that night. I looked back at my guest. She was near bawling at this point. Not upset, but emotional and unable to hold back the tears. I again asked if she was alright with the story being told and this is what a total stranger, less than ten minutes ago, told me, “I was close friends with the family and I know for a fact the boys left home the last day after school to go play “war”!” Wow! I later verified her story and credibility. I was stunned and in shock! She verified my story’s theory, in front of room full of witnesses! Unbelievable! I didn’t care that I was right. I just wanted to know. I wanted validation to my crazy story. Now, I thought, I had it. I had been lucky to stumble on to this story. I also worked diligently. The evidence led to the story. The story led to witness validation. My life will never be the same and their story is now part of me. I will never forget them and will always take a little time from my life to visit my friends in that back corner of the cemetery.