Bookcase sneezes

Last post I said I didn't expect any activity until Autumn. I guess I was a bit premature. Last Thursday my wife and the older dog were in the library, my wife using the computer and the dog snoozen beside her chair. I was directly across from my wife in the Den working on a drawing with the younger dog sitting with her nose almost touching the TV screen in the far side of the room. The TV was turned low as the dog follows the action not the sound anyway. The younger dog is a TV freak whereas the elder male could not possibly care any less. Anyway, it was relatively quiet when the southern wall bookcase sneezed. It wasn't my wife, it wasn't the sleeping dog it certainly wasn't me or the other dog. "The book shelves sneezed", my wife said, "Did you hear that?" " The bookshelves?" I replied, I figured it was her. "I didn't sneeze" she protested. Hurriedly I jammed on a pair of shoes and quickly left by the western side door of the house, ran around back and checked out the area where those bookshelves front the exterior wall. Nothing, nobody anywhere to be seen. Had someone sneezed outside the house I doubt we would have heard them anyway unless a window was open and we haven't been able to open a window into the Library in years. I came back in reporting nothing to report. "What area of the bookcase did the sneeze emminate from?" I inquired? Pointing at the second glass door from the west or directly south of where she sat, "There". We've been through this before. Several years ago, while being visited by a friend we all heard the bookcase cough. This was during winter and we had a good coating of snow on the ground. The friend remarked, "I think we have some snoops". He wanted to go out and try to track them down; he thought he knew who they probably were. So we left, this time by the eastern rear door which opens directly out behind the eastern wing of the house where the Library is located. There was not a trace of footprints in that virgin snow, not even animal tracks. This time there was no snow. I drilled behind the bookcase shortly after the first episode to see if I hit any hollow areas; I didn't. We do not know who or what coughed then and we certainly do not know who or what sneezed this time. One interested party suggested that perhaps we have or had an animal in the walls that caused the sneeze. For those of you who are not familiar with this house, it is brick and it would seem an opening large enough to admit a raccoon would be easily spotted. I won't say it couldn't have been an animal; possibly that is the answer. But how?This house, built in 1857, has solid brick walls several bricks thick. The early builders plastered (what they used for plaster back then was pretty close to concrete by todays standards) right over the brick, The floors are local hardwood and we have found that the use of wood studs in this house, originally, was pretty sparse except for the floors and the dumwaiter shaft. The roof has huge walnut rafters as well, but not much wood in the walls except for rooms that were added. If there are hidden areas in the house that I haven't found they must really be well concealed. We have 5 hidden (rooms)actually not big enough to be rooms but great places to conceal loot. Two of them are filled with insulation (Blown in insulation filled these speces before we were able to determine where in heck all of that insulation was going) There is one innerwall tunnel that leads from a crawlspace under the stairs all the way up to the attic but the exit in the attic was closed off and plastered over, from the looks of it, very early in the houses history. So I suppose anything is possible.Old houses can be a lot of fun....if you're not easily scared.

Took photos midnight June 20th Longest day

Using three different cameras; one digitile and two loaded with film, I took a series of pictures primarily in areas where "disks" and lights have appeared in the past. I haven't sent the films away as yet, as they are not fully used. I ran a visual on screen check of the photos on the digitile and did not detect anything much. On one photo, taken outside, I have a few blots and I probably should print it but I'm fairly certain they will turn out to be insects.If anything unexplained does show up on any of the pictures I will report it here. Otherwise the house is still very quiet. Nothing unusual to report. I don't really expect any activity until autumn.

Third film

The third film came back some time ago. I just hadn't reported on it. Primarily because there was nothing to report. The pictures were clear, well defined, boring. I took pictures of different rooms in the house including the "Noahroom" which we had just replastered and repainted. No pictures show the strange disk shapes that appear on pictures taken on Halloween nights or the one occassion when they appeared on photos taken on the shortest day of the year. I recently sent away another film. My cameras are loaded and ready for the night of June 21st (longest day); I plan on using both film and digitile for that one. If nothing appears on those, well, it won't be too awful long til Halloween again. Still no one has any explaination for these strange round clear disks that appear only on special nights, but not in all photos. Dust reflection has been ruled out. Any ghost hunters out there have any idea what we are getting here? Or anyone else, for that matter?

Still experimenting

I recently went to an auction. One of the items that came up was a boxful of cannisters of color print film with a speed of 200. The film was dated 2004, there was 14 of them. I suppose because it was so far out of date no one bid on it. I took a chance and got it all for $1.00. Being a semi professional photographer in my younger years, I realized that film stays good unless subjected to temperartures above 90 degrees for extended periods of time. I also know that film that is refrigerated will last almost indefinitely. So film in a climate controlled store would be good a long time past expiration. I immediately took one of the rolls and placed it in a camera and shot the whole roll at everything in sight. I shot the whole roll and got it ready to mail to be developed. The roll came back perfect. The pictures were mundane to the point of boring but the quality was quite good. There were no unusual globes or disks or funny light points. With film this cheap I figured now would be a good time to shoot areas where the strange disks had shown up before. My second roll of cheap film came back photographically perfect and I had some good dog pictures and some out of doors blossoms that were quite attractive. But there were NO disks, globes of light or anything else strange. I just sent away film three, it hasn't returned yet. If Beltane hasn't passed yet; I want to try some photos of the interior of the house during that period. I gotta look it up.But so far, I've only had disks show up in photographs taken on Halloween and on the shortest day of the year and they showed up on both film and digitile images. I read a report on one of those paranormal sites that felt they had proved that these "globe" artifacts were actually dust particles or some such. They had used an old stereo camera and shot around an old house said to be haunted. They got globes but the globes only showed up one or the other of the stereo photos. Never on both at the same time so they felt they had proved their case. I feel otherwise because if the globes were caused by dirt why wouldn't the same dusty mote be picked up by both lenses? There is only one flash, not two. Besides their examples are white globes. I have taken pictures in areas of dust and got these globes as well. I know they are dust flashbacks. But the anomaly I have been picking up in this house only on special nights is not a white globe but rather a perfectly circular clear ring. My processing company cannot explain it and a local professional photographer said he had never seen anything like it. So until I get a logical answer I'll continue to try getting them and record the dates they show up.

House quiet

The house has been unusually quiet for sometime. Nothing unusual occurred in April at all. If things go as usual, it'll probably be October or November before the house becomes active again. But then again, I've been wrong before and there is no rhyme nor reason to the strange activities in this place. Normally the most active period is from late October up to March or April. Other than replacing half the house roof, I have no major activities planned for the house. Inside renovations have, in the past, caused an increase to the strange. Beyond painting the Noahroom which is almost finished, none others are planned inside. I won't report if theres nothing to report.

Ghostly dog again

Yesterday I worked at the computer which is in the Library. The Library can be entered by two different doors. One of the doors is almost beside the computer table and leads from the dining room the other doorway is directly to my right as I sit at the computer and leads into the Den. I was reading mail on my computer and scratching the ears of my grey schnauzer when I saw the movement of a grey schnauzer from the Diningroom through the Library and into the Den. It didn't register with me at that time that anything was amiss and my older grey schnauzer was enjoying getting his ears rubbed and did not react to the presence of the "other" dog. Moments later I caught the movement of a grey dog going from the Den to the Diningroom and that was when it hit me that I have only one grey dog and I was scratching his ears. Our other schnauzer is a younger coal black dog, easily noticeably different from her older grey companion. I have had several episodes of dogs appearing where they couldn't. But my real dogs do not seem to pay any attention to them. I saw this dog trot from the diningroom to the den and later come out of the den and go to the diningroom. I was not looking directly at him, I have excellent periphial vision, but this was a bit better than "out of the corner of my eye". This is the type of thing that I seek an explaination for. The first thing that goes through your head is "ghost"; but I'm far from sold on the idea of wandering spirits either human or animal.

Been off line

In January my computer got a serious "worm". Even though I had virius protection I was told the "worm" rode in on a trojan. The service caught the trojan but not the worm. Took a while to clear the computer completely then when I got back on line this blog was nowhere to be found. Last week it reappeared, like a ghost, from nowhere. There have been a couple minor incidents during the time I couldn't find the blog. But I have another source where I was storing them until I got the blog back. It'll take me a few days to reread what I wrote during those three months and then I will attempt to bring the blog back up to date. In fact, I had a bit of a startling occrance just today, involving a dog that wasn't there. More later.