The McPike Mansion - 8/8/08

Location: The McPike Mansion, Alton Illinois. The McPike Mansion has become very well known as Alton's "haunted house". It was built in 1869 and was one of the largest estates in the city. Henry Guest McPike and his family occupied the home until around 1936, when the location was sold and spent further time as a boarding house, a business college, and private residence.

There is very little to document any history of violence or tragedy on the property, but the stories of McPike's haunting persist. Some reports indicate that there may be as many as 10 to 11 spirits residing on the property. Many theories have been posed over the years for this activity, including Native American land use, residual energy from the McPike family, and also unfinished business from some of the past residents.

The mansion sat abandoned for nearly 50 years and efforts to restore the mansion to its former glory have only recently gotten underway. Consequently, most of the house is unsafe to go through, so in the interest of safety, we constrained our investigation to the basement/wine cellar area and the grounds around the house.

Conditions: This investigation was conducted between 9:00 PM and 1:00 AM. The inside temperature was recorded at the start of the investigation at 82 degrees dropping to 69 degrees closer to the end. The relative humidity level was approximately 92 percent in the basement. The moon was in a waning gibbous phase 86 percent of full. Solar x-ray levels were normal and the geomagnetic field was quiet. Barometric pressure was recorded at 29.40.

Equipment Used: Two Canon 10D DSLRs, one with a 380EX Flash and one with a 430EX Flash, Sony V1 with a Sony HVL-IRM Infrared Extender, Two Extech 480823 EMF Detectors, Two Cellsensor EMF Detectors, Olympus VN-4100PC digital audio recorder, Olympus DS-30 digital audio recorder, Radio Shack Thermometer/Hygrometer, Brunton ADC Ridge Barometer, Extech EX410 Digital Multimeter, Two Craftsman Digital 82345 Multimeter's, Two Mastercool 52224 IR Thermometers, Sony DCR-SR82 Camcorder with a Sony HVL-IRM Infrared Extender, Sony ICD-P620 digital audio recorder.

Additionally, the owner of the mansion, Sharon, provided us with a few sets of dowsing rods to experiment with.

The Set-Up: We initially began the investigation with one team in the basement/cellar area and one team outside investigating the grounds. Many of the unexplained photographs of McPike have been taken outside shooting in through the windows. We tried to focus on the same types of shots to see if we could either capture similar evidence or find explanations for what was turning up in the photos. Both infrared and visual spectrum cameras were used for this. Each group took a turn inside and out, before rejoining as a larger group to focus on the cellar more intensely. EVP sessions were only recorded inside the house due to excessive audio contamination from the outside traffic. Both active and passive EVP techniques were used. In this investigation, we tried an experiment to see if we could stimulate activity with music. We used an iPod hooked up to a small set of speakers to play period relevant music to see if any observable changes could be noted. Besides the period music, we also tried playing some contemporary music to see if that would garner any response. Temperature and EMF were constantly monitored.

Personal Experiences: Several people reported a variety of personal experiences. When all of the lights were turned off in the cellar area, it was pitch black - it was as dark as being in a cave. Despite this, seven of the nine people present reported seeing flashes or balls of light lasting only a fraction of a second before disappearing. We may have captured this phenomena on camera, see the results below for further details.

Two investigators heard a sound that resembled the whimper of a child just outside the cellar door area. Another investigator felt a touch across his neck while in the cellar area. While walking the grounds outside, two investigators simultaneously witnessed what appeared to be a shadow in through a second floor window.

Meter Readings: Base readings were taken of both temperature and EMF at the start of the investigation. There were no observable sources of EMF in the basement/cellar area. At one point in the evening, an investigator heard a powered-on Cellsensor EMF detector beep on its own while sitting on a chair next to him. Turning a flashlight on the meter revealed the needle bouncing up a down around 1 mG. It jumped above 2 mG on three occasions and hit 3.5 mG at the highest. A second Cellsensor meter was placed next to the first erratic one and exhibited the same behavior. Two Extech digital EMF detectors were also placed on the same surface, but while the Cellsensor meters were bouncing around, the digital meters never registered a change of more than .1 mG. This event occurred in front of four investigators and was even recorded on camcorder. This entire incident only lasted for about 15 minutes before subsiding and no other anomalous EMF activity was recorded all night.

Results and Analysis: Analysis of the visual spectrum images did not reveal anything unusual. Infrared photography did not reveal anything of note. Audio and video analysis did not show anything out of the ordinary either.

Video Clip Showing EMF Irregularities:

This video clip highlights some of the EMF activity that was described earlier.