St. Stanislaus Ruins - 10/15/2007

Second Visit

Location: In north St. Louis county, off of Aubachon Road. These ruins were once used as a retreat from the nearby St. Stanislaus Missionary. The buildings were abandoned in 1905 and are simply ruins now.

Local stories indicate that the area was known for strange sounds and voices that would come from the areas of the ruins. Another report indicated the presence of an apparition on the site as well.

Conditions: Temperature was 62 to 65 degrees during the investigation. Relative humidity was recorded at between 83 and 87 percent. The moon was in a waxing crescent phase, 21 percent of full. Solar x-rays were normal and the geomagnetic field was quiet.

Equipment Used: Canon 10D DSLR with a Canon 380EX Speedlite, Sony SR300 Camcorder, Olympus DS-30 Digital Audio Recorder, Extech EX410 Digital Multimeter, Extech 480823 EMF Detector.

Personal Experiences: A handful of unexplainable noises were heard in the woods surrounding us - nothing that probably can't be explained as "outdoor noises" though. At one point, there were several sounds like someone knocking branches together that appeared to come from several different directions, all within a short period of time.

Additionally, while the investigators were walking along a path, immediately next to the investigator in front, something moved to his immediate left, making three distinct "sounds" into the woods. It sounded large enough to be something like a frog and both investigators even noted the shaking of a small bush near where the sounds passed by. Both investigators walked towards the point where the sounds stopped, approximately three feet away, and attempted to locate and scare out any animal that might have made the noise. Despite several minutes of stomping around and leaf rustling, no culprit was ever found.

Results and Analysis: Photographic analysis revealed one anomaly. Video revealed two interesting clips. Audio analysis did not yield anything unusual.

Photo Anomaly:

This photo has three very interesting looking orbs in it. I think it is worthy to note that this is the only photo taken all night that showed any type of orb activity - paranormal, dust, insect, moisture, or otherwise.

Here are the enlargements of the three orbs in question. They all have the same bluish tint to them and appear to exhibit signs of movement. The photographer noted the appearance of these orbs on the camera at the time and immediately snapped off another photo of the same direction from the same spot exactly 12 seconds after this photo and nothing that looked like this appeared.

Video Anomaly One:

We managed to capture what sounds like footsteps walking away from the camcorder. At the time, both investigators were approximately 50 feet away from where the camcorder was set up and recording and were seated at the time. In fact, towards the end of the clip, you can actually see the investigators flashlights off in the distance.

The way the camcorder was placed, it was sitting with its backside towards a stone wall, so anything that would be moving close enough for the camcorder to pick up would have shown up in front of the camcorder and therefore be caught on video.

 

These footsteps are within feet of the area where only minutes later investigators heard what appeared to be something take several footsteps away from them.

Here is the extracted audio clip of the sound of the footsteps walking away from the camcorder:

 

After listening to this audio carefully, it seems that there might be an EVP embedded in the audio. The following clip has been trimmed to only feature the segment with the voice and has the gain increased to make it easier to hear:

 

This clip is from the exact beginning of the audio when the camcorder turns back on. Just before the sound of the first footstep appears to be a low voice. It is difficult to make out exactly what it is saying, but it sounds like it might be "fine then" or "find them". Once again, spectrographic analysis of this voice shows that it clearly did not come from any human vocal chords.

Video Anomaly Two:

 

This video was captured in the main area of the ruins. This was during an EVP session where we were asking for a sign from any presence. What makes this video interesting is that as soon as the investigator asks for whatever is there to manifest itself, something flies right in front of the camcorder. In all likely hood, it is simply a bug. However, still frame analysis only shows a circular or elliptical shaped object not displaying any movement that could resemble an insect's wings or the traditional insect body shape. This may just have to do with the fact that the bug may be very close to the camera and therefore out of focus, but it is still an interesting piece of video.

These are a couple of enhanced frame captures of whatever the object is as it flies by.