The Supernatural Investigators of Virginia have been ghost hunting in suspected haunted homes and buildings all over Virginia since 2006. This weekend the investigators invited NBC29 on one of their searches in the Shenandoah Valley.

On Saturday night, the group investigated the Miller-Kite House, an old home in Elkton that once served as a headquarters for Stonewall Jackson. The home, which is now a museum, played a significant role during the Civil War, and some say the soldiers that visited the house then are still there.

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Doors were open. Lights were off. The thermometer recorded a temperature of 69 degrees. The electromagnetic field meter beeped and flashed as Becca Warren carried it around the second floor of Prentis House.

Her team gathered in a room with a fireplace and large desk jutting from the wall. The teen scientists placed a compass and a Geiger counter - a metal box that detects radiation - on a rug and waited.

Then they got their cue: “Let’s party like it’s 1899,” Marcus Daniels, their teacher at Lakeland High School, called over the radio, signaling it was time to start the investigation.

Since September, members of the Lakeland Skeptics Society have pitted science against the supernatural. Daniels, an earth science and oceanography teacher, formed the club to boost students’ problem-solving skills. Twenty-five students signed up.

Using the scientific method, the students meet after school and on weekends to investigate myths, urban legends and paranormal activity.

“It’s strictly science and I like to keep it that way,” Daniels said. “These kids have all kinds of different beliefs.”

Early on, the group tested the question: “Is a Ouija board guided by the paranormal or is it just a piece of compressed cardboard and plastic?” They formed a hypothesis - that the board works by subconscious human error - and conducted the experiment. Ten students decided paranormal activity couldn’t be ruled out, while six others agreed with the hypothesis.

Something of a novelty in high schools, the club is scheduled to be featured next year in an issue of Colorado-based Haunted Times magazine.

Last month, students met on two Saturday nights for evidence-gathering sessions at Prentis House, a more than 200-year-old structure that’s home to the city’s visitors center.

Several students sported black shirts with the “Ghostbusters” logo. They carried plenty of gear, including a Ouija board, tarot cards and a $5,000 thermal imaging camera on loan from Southeastern Environmental & Construction.

The room where Becca’s team sat was quiet, save for a couple of whispered questions and Civil War-era music blasting on the floor below. Daniels, who described it as “Lil Wayne of the 1800s,” figured the music might stir up paranormal activity, if any existed.

“We’d really like to talk to you if anyone’s here with us,” Becca said.

“Can you just give us a sign of your presence?” freshman Kayla Culbertson asked in the same quiet tone.

The sign never came.

Or did it?

Anyone on the second floor knock? Daniels asked over the radio. Nope, they responded.

But somebody heard a knock.

Students on the third floor thought they heard a scream. Then Daniels said he heard another knock on the second floor. Becca’s team heard nothing.

A minute later, they did hear a knock - a loud one. Their bodies stiffened. Becca immediately reached for the radio.

“There’s somebody at the front door,” Daniels said.

Source: http://www.paraurl.com/?JEZAp

Recordings of disembodied voices and a number of eerie personal experiences are enough for the Mason Dixon Paranormal Society to conclude that the Schifferstadt Architectural Museum is haunted.

After conducting a two-night paranormal investigation nearly three weeks ago, the society met with the museum’s staff Monday to reveal its findings.

During the investigation, which was open to the public for a fee to benefit the museum, the society collected about 70 hours of digital video recordings, more than two hours of thermal imaging video, and 180 hours of audio. After days of close watching and listening, the group came away with 35 electronic voice phenomena — believed to be recordings of ghostly voices.

“It’s a very low frequency tone that you cannot hear with the human ear,” said Stewart Cornelius, co-founder of Gettysburg, Pa.,-based society. “But for some reason mechanical devices can pick it up.”

Some EVPs from the Schifferstadt investigation feature clear answers to questions posed by the investigators — “yes” or “no” from unidentifiable voices.

Twice, society recorded a child’s voice saying what sounds like “mommy.”

Other recordings seem to be in German — fitting because Schifferstadt was originally home to German settlers. Even a few longer phrases were captured, such as a deep, raspy voice saying, “On the wall over there.”

Although the EVPs were chilling, they are not enough to scare away the Schifferstadt’s staff.

“It doesn’t really change things for me, but I already knew what was going on,” said Greg Glewwe, who helps with the museum’s Spirit Tours. “Even if you do get a little bit of a creepy feeling, there’s never been anything negative happen. In the end, there’s some stuff that you can’t come up with an explanation for.”

Liz Lipke, Schifferstadt’s former director and a self-proclaimed skeptic, thinks the ghostly evidence is more reassuring than anything.

“I have heard footsteps here myself and I can’t explain where they come from. I think that the investigation is a way to capture evidence of what the unexplained is — maybe make me feel as if other people have heard what I heard, and it’s not just my imagination.”

But to anyone unfamiliar with the paranormal and the strange happenings at Schifferstadt, the society findings may seem outlandish.

“People come up to me and they say I don’t believe it, and that’s fine,” said Darryl Keller, society co-founder. “You might not believe it and then you can be shown evidence, and that evidence could be taken to the most qualified video expert, and he can say, ‘Yes, I can tell you that this film is not tampered with.’ And still people won’t believe it until it happens to them.”

Whether someone believes in ghosts, there nothing paranormal about the society’s willingness to boost the museum’s fundraising efforts by doing the investigation.

Christina Murphy is the museum’s head gardener.N