The Voices of Stone II:
Cemetery Survey

28 November, 1999

Near NR's home town is a small rural cemetery dating to the 1830's. Sugar Creek Cemetery consists of about 2/3 acre of clearing in a wooded area. The soil is perpetually moist, and were it not for the admirable attendance of the Woodville Township crew, certainly the trees would soon reclaim the ground.

Time, vandals, and weather have leveled and removed all except fourteen of the markers in the cemetery, giving it a queer, open, park-like appearance.

On the afternoon of the 28th of November, we decided to use the technique discussed in our first paper on the topic of petro-electricity to examine the old stones in the cemetery. Did any of the markers possess unusual electrical potentials and fields? We prepared a pair of electrodes from aluminum foil taped to wooden dowel rods. These were connected to the Fluke 79 digital meter.

After arrival at the cemetery, we used the probes and Fluke on each of the gravestones, looking for voltage potentials. The probes were pressed firmly against the stone of each marker, usually about 3 to 4 inches apart.

Most of the stones produced very little charge, 1 to 2 millivolts typically. However, near the far NW corner of the clearing, a stone was found that seemed to be "alive"!

It is a fairly well preserved white marble marker, lying on it's back in the grass. The marker belongs to a one Jacob F. Myerholt, who passed away on July 2, 1858 at the age of 62.

Unlike the other stones, the Myerholt marker produced a fluctuating potential of surprising magnitude, between 50 and 250 millivolts! Could this have been due to the fact that the stone was lying against the moist earth? Apparently not, as we tried several other broken off, horizontal stones, and only saw a millivolt or two. Marker composition may have been a factor, however we found that all except one of the markers in the cemetery were of white marble, a very popular stone from the 1830s to 1860s. The odd stone out appeared to be of grey slate, and did not produce any appreciable potentials.

Two other markers produced voltages worth mentioning, between 5 and 20 millivolts. These two stones were a side by side pair, for a young Meyers boy and girl who passed away in 1862 at the ages of 5 and 10 respectively.

So what are we to make of this? What mechanism would cause certain gravestones to be electrically active, and others to be dormant, when composition and environment are similar? Position near earth currents?

We took a set of photos of the markers in question, hoping with the nervous expectations of a ghost-hunter that some curious anomaly would show up in the prints! However, the next portion of our investigation concerned the possibility of capturing interesting phenomena on tape.

A small GE tape recorder was fitted with a low noise audio cassette. A pair of jumper wires was used to connect the microphone input of the recorder to our stone probes. The probes were then pressed firmly in place against the Myerholt marker using a piece of wood, for a period of five minutes, during which the tape was rolling.

Unfortunately, our fanciful expectations of eerie voices, and extraordinary EVP sounds were not to be, when the tape was played back. Instead, however, a series of erratic pops and clicks were heard, similar in character to lightning "pops" on an AM radio during a thunderstorm. We suspect that these may correspond with the fluctuations in voltage seen with the Fluke meter.

Nevertheless, it may be said that the Myerholt stone was unique, and thus demonstrated that certain gravestones in cemeteries indeed seem to be "charged" or electrically alive. These stones, when found, may yet prove to be related to more subtle forms of energy, and could be preferential locations for EVP, ghost photography, or psychic impression gathering.

The use of the petro-electical potential as an indicator of anomalous activity in cemeteries or sacred areas, however, requires responsibility and a sense of respect. The investigator must be sure to do no more harm to a stone than would a historian making a rubbing with charcoal and paper!

After all, one may never know what whispered ill-reputation might drift from stone to stone, preceding the callous or careless investigator.

Back to top