If you have been reading Spectral Review recently, you know that we went on an investigation of Myrtles Plantation with Everyday Paranormal. We also collected creepy personal experiences from people from the Caretaker’s Cottage, the Myrtles Plantation Museum, and the upstairs bedrooms.

What we thought we would do is create a timeline of the events of the day. This timeline will show just how the day progressed and how the investigation was organized. We do this so readers can:

• Have an idea of what it will be like if they go on an investigation in the future with Everyday Paranormal
• See how to run an event like this if another paranormal group wishes to do something similar

The folks at Everyday Paranormal did an excellent job of organization of such a large event. The Myrtles Plantation is large and doing an investigation with about 15 newbies is not a simple task. Plus the investigation was being filmed for a future DVD.

Here is how the day proceeded:

The Arrival

We were told that we could arrive at the Myrtles Plantation by noon. Even though check-in wasn’t until 2PM, we could get a feel for the plantation and check out the grounds. This is the time we used to create the Myrtles Plantation Photo Gallery.

At 2PM we were given keys to our room and we brought our things in from the car. Our room was the William Winters Room. One report of a haunting in our room is a young girl by the name of Kate who died of yellow fever when she was just four years old. The day before she died a slave by the name of Cleo who knew voodoo placed a protective bag filled with voodoo goodies under the floor board in the room and said the girl would be cured. When the outcome was quite the opposite, Cleo was hung from the chandelier in the room and her body dumped in the Mississippi River.

I felt my head and it was getting warm.

The Unofficial Tour of the Myrtles Plantation

Brad Klinge took the group on an unofficial tour of the Myrtles Plantation. We went to all the buildings and rooms that we would be investigating later that day and into the next. He gave us the names of the spirits believed to be haunting the plantation and the locations of where they have been found before.

These locations included the main house and the five bedrooms known as the General David Bradford Suite, the Judge Clarke Woodruff Suite, the Fannie Williams Room, the Ruffin-Stirling Room, the William Winters Room, and the John W. Leake Room.

The Caretaker’s Cottage is located behind the main house and is supposed to be haunted by “Poppy” a former caretaker of the property. “Poppy” also has been seen at the entrance of the plantation exhorting visitors to go away.

Also on the property is the former slave building which is now a refurbished building containing four Garden Rooms known as The Azalea, Camellia, Magnolia, and Oleander Rooms. These rooms now are comfortable, nothing like the conditions that the many slaves of the plantation had to endure.

Ghost Hunting 101

At 4PM Brad gave the group the basics of Ghost hunting. We all have seen the TV shows do EVP sessions but there are things to remember that are not obvious. Things that you don’t think about until you spend time listening to a recording trying to find an EVP. Some points to remember:

• If you make some sound, add a verbal “That was me…” with an explanation of why the sound was made.
• Do not whisper thinking that the recorder won’t pick it up. The recorders are very sensitive and a whisper can easily be confused later on as an EVP.
• Keep the EVP sessions time length to five minutes or so. It’s just hard to evaluate a long EVP session.

Brad also taught us how to use the K2 meter and explained how it measures EMF. He also included some information on the use of a digital thermometer to be able to measure cold spots.

The Ghost Hunting 101 session was finished off with a demonstration of the evidence captured the previous time Everyday Paranormal visited Myrtles Plantation. You can see and hear this evidence for yourself.

Dinner

We broke for dinner at 6PM. We were to return at 8PM so we had plenty of time to dine.

The restaurant located at the Myrtles closes at 2PM on Sundays so we were on our own to get dinner. The town that the Myrtles Plantation is located is St. Francisville, Louisiana. It’s not a huge town but did have a few fast food places. One of which was Sonic. That chain advertises nationally but in our area there are none. So we went there for dinner. Suffice it to say, their commercials are funnier than their food is good.

The Official Tour of the Myrtles Plantation Museum

It was 8PM and it was time for the official tour given by the Myrtles Plantation staff. While we took the tour, the Everyday Paranormal team setup their equipment for the investigation.

The tour was given by a young man by the name of Robby. We were shown the “museum” part of the main home. This section of the home does not contain the bedrooms we had seen earlier. And this part of the home people are allowed access only during this tour. The furniture is very old and of the time of the working plantation.

We were told of the stories of the hauntings of the Myrtles. Including the spirits believed to remain on the plantation and their stories. The tour guide Robby was very interesting and told these stories excellently. If you are in the Myrtles Plantation area in the future, stop by and take the tour.

They have a box of trinkets that have been moved or interacted with by the spirits. Most of these items were jewelry. Robby told us the most recent addition to this box was a rock thrown at the Everyday Paranormal investigators on their last visit to the Myrtles!

The Investigation

At about 9PM it was time to begin the investigation. By then as the newbies were eating dinner and going on the tour, Everyday Paranormal was able to setup all of their equipment. They have all the fancy equipment we have come to expect from the big budget Ghost Hunters show. They had an IR DVR system installed with four cameras. They also had a hand held thermal imaging camera at their disposal.

The newbies were put into teams of four or five people and an investigator from Everyday Paranormal was assigned to each group. Then the plantation was broken up into four sections with each team assigned a section. Each section was devoted about an hour of investigation.

The four sections were:

• The main house
• The grounds around the buildings
• The Caretakers Cottage
• The slave quarters and the gazebo area

As each hour passed the teams would rotate to another section. Brad and Barry the founders of Everyday Paranormal would work with each team over the evening. They would have the thermal camera with them as they did. So it was really good, each team had their assigned investigator with them at all times and also had some sessions with Brad and Barry.

The team we were on was lead by a terrific guy Steve who is “the voice” of Everyday Paranormal. By that we mean he will be doing the narration on the upcoming DVDs that the group will be releasing this summer. I can’t wait till I can buy them!

The whole process was just thought out well and very organized.

Time to do the “Bed” Part of B&B

It was after 4AM and we must admit we were pretty tired. Hitting the William Winters bed sounded like a really good idea. Everyday Paranormal decided to take down the IR cameras and other equipment before retiring instead of doing it in the morning daylight. After they removed the IR camera from our room we set up our miniDV camera on it’s tripod and aimed it at the fireplace mantle and the doll perched on it. One of the many claims of Myrtles Plantation by the staff is that these dolls in the rooms move to other locations in the home. If the doll in our room decided to take a stroll while we were sleeping, we wanted to see it move on video.

The “Breakfast” Part of B&B

We headed to the courtyard for breakfast after a few hours of sleep. The courtyard has tables and one can get freshly made food from the gift shop. On entering the gift shop we were greeted by Hester who manages the Myrtles. Hester has made appearances on many paranormal TV shows that feature the Myrtles. Including the Ghost Hunters when they visited the plantation in season two. We had watched that episode a few days before heading to the investigation and chuckled when she called Jason and Grant “darlings and babies”. So we felt at home when she greeted us with “Hi darlings, are you here for breakfast? Over there babies and help yourself.”

Heading Home

As paranormal investigators say, the real investigation begins when you have left the property and begin listening to all the captured audio and watching captured video. Since we had several hours of airplane flying we were able to begin our task of listening to the captured audio from the many EVP sessions in which we participated.

Look for our results in the near future!

Conclusion

I cannot recommend more highly for you to participate in an event like the one we did. Keep an eye on the Everyday Paranormal web site for future events or come back here from time to time and we will be sure to keep all updated on the happenings of Everyday Paranormal.