The Avalon Foundation :|: Field Studies

N.A. Reiter
(Solo investigation on behalf of The Avalon Foundation)

29 June 2003

Background:

In late 2002, I was contacted by "Rachel", a young mother from northern Kentucky, regarding interesting haunted locations in Ohio that could be visited by amateur ghost hunters. I supplied Rachel with a short list of some Ohio favorites, and thought little more of the matter, until she e-mailed me back to tell me some of her own stories. Rachel had grown up in a little one story house in the country near Taylor Mill, KY, and had experienced a variety of phenomena in that house. Rachel's mother, Paula, still lived in the same house, and had continued to experience the unusual over the ten years or more since Rachel had moved out on her own. Among the phenomena reported since Rachel's childhood:

Peripheral glimpsed apparitions - generally agreed upon as a short male.
Sighing sounds, and whispered or vocalized night voices of low level.
Series of knocks on walls in the house - always in groups of seven.
Keys on an electric organ being depressed with no-one present at the keyboard.
An occasional glimpse of a ghostly cat.
Anomalous movement of hanging planters and doors.
Water faucets coming on with no-one in the room.
The appearance of an unusual and possibly archetypal entity - discussed later.
Shaking beds - experienced by several family members.
Small light balls encountered in the home.

According to Rachel and her mother, the house had been built in the early 1950s, and was situated on land that seemed to have contained only field or pasture before that time. The home had only one previous owner before Rachel's family. It is not known if that owner had experienced strange events.

Spring of 2003 came, and I found that an opportunity was looming for a day trip to the Cincinnati area, so I made arrangements with Rachel to meet her and her mom at their old home.

My Visit:

On a hot Sunday afternoon, the 22nd of June, I pulled up at the cozy little ranch home perched on a hillside south of Taylor Mill.

I was met by Rachel, her mother Paula, and Paula's sister Dolly. After some cordial chat and discussion, I began some rounds of the small house, with our light assortment of instruments, digital camera, and dowsing rods.

Overall, little was found in the way of magnetic, acoustic, or electrostatic anomalies. One location of moderate magnetic distortion was found near the foot of Paula's bed, at approximately bed height. It did not appear to be due to any feature of the bed frame.

While my skills as a dowser are not as honed as partner LS', I persevere. Several locations were found where dowsing L rods responded vigorously. One of these was the northeast corner of a small greenhouse room off of the living room. I was informed after the fact that this had been roughly the location of Rachel's encounter with the tall archetypal entity, as well as the area where a hanging planter had been observed to swing spontaneously. The other dowsing reactions were all found in Paula's bedroom. One was at the foot of the bed, and may correspond with the area of magnetic distortion. Another appeared to be just inside the folding door of the bedroom closet. A third seemed to be near the south side of the head of the bed.

Opportunity was given for Rachel, Paula and Dolly to all try their hand at dowsing. Rachel and Paula seemed to have a knack for it, although Rachel found that for her, reactions tended to involve one rod swinging over the non-moving other in a "T" fashion. This was curious.

Digital photos showed little, however we do find in one shot an odd translucent "tail" like image hanging down over a doorway.

This may be a momentary reflection from something... although it is hard to say just what. Other photos before and after of the same doorway do not show this image. Another shot taken in the living room shows a pair of bluish spots near the west wall, however these may be from overhead light fixture glare.

I ended the afternoon with coffee and light-hearted discussion with my three cheerful and lovely hostesses. When I departed, all three indicated that they felt more knowledgeable and comfortable about the events in the house, and would continue to monitor the situation and keep in touch.

Some Discussion:

As I kicked back and listened to the tales told by the three women, a motif began to work its way into my reckoning... a hint of the Visitors... the phenomena associated more commonly over the past two decades with alien abduction experiencers. In my mind, a checklist was getting ticked off, item by item. Why did so much of this seem familiar, from my days back in the early 90's as an abduction investigator? None of the three women appeared to have any more than a passing knowledge of the UFO scene, from those shows on TV that so often formed the popular view of the Visitors. Yet the ladies were telling me about certain aspects not popularly known by the media, such as nocturnal paralysis and BOLs (balls of light). Paula and Dolly disclosed that over the past few years, they had experienced some dramatic missing time sequences while driving in the northern Kentucky area... however they never had associated this with anything alien. It had simply been weird.

Rachel's encounter however, was an eerie clincher. As a teenager, Rachel had been in the living room one evening, and happened to glance into a mirror that was situated in front of her. She was horrified and shocked to see a brief image of a being that quickly vanished. The being appeared to be a tall, thin human male figure, in a black antique suit and a tall black top hat. Like some hellish blend of Abraham Lincoln, an old timey undertaker, and maybe even the Voodoo entity known as "Baron Samedi".

This being or image, which LS and I feel may be a specific archetypal appearance, has been reported by several experiencers of anomalous and Visitor related phenomena in our research. It has not, however, been discussed in either UFO or ghost literature, and represents a fascinating "virgin" mystery. This being had even been seen or encountered within LS' family.

Conclusions:

It would be my conclusion that the events at the home near Taylor Mill do not represent a deceased but retained spirit per se (although without partner LS' intuitive and clairsentient abilities this cannot be said for certain). It also does not seem likely that a classical poltergeist influence exists, as the phenomena in the home has manifested over 20 some odd years of time. It is possible that the phenomena could be related to a repeating energy or informational pattern from an earlier time or owner, however nothing is known about the previous owner's life or situation. More research by Paula may bring new evidence for this possibility to light.

Nevertheless, from the testimony of the three women present, there does exist a strong "flavor" of the Visitor experience, complete with the old multi-generational and familial bloodline element.

Once again, the invisible dimensions and inscrutable origin and agendas of the Visitors come to mind, and make us ponder.

In closing, I would like to warmly thank Rachel, her mom, and aunt Dolly for a wonderful time, and the opportunity to gain new knowledge and insight on this seemingly never-ending quest.