McIntosh Area - Oxford Alabama

     On February 20th, the OPS Team re-visited a home in the Oxford area to not only aid the owners in their attempt to capture paranormal active but to also try and dismiss some of the claims if possible. OPS first visited this home on December 5th 2008, to investigate some of the claims that have been reported. We were unable to complete our investigation that night after we experienced difficulties with the equipment on what proved to be one of the coldest nights of that year and we had an outside set-up for the monitoring station that night.

     Some of the activity that has been reported in this home are, the owners and their children being touched, being held down in the bed with the covers, hearing voices and sounds, being brushed up against, objects being moved, a chandelier that sways back and forth, a stem on a watch that sits on a nightstand that is pulled out on numerous occasions and doors opening and closing.

     OPS decided to add new members this year to our team. We accepted applications throughout the fall and winter months of 2008 and decided on four new members that we thought would represent the OPS Team in a professional manner as well as upholding our same values and beliefs. The OPS Team welcomed Carla, the second of four new members, on her first investigation in the field on this Friday night.

     We arrived at 8:00 pm to meet with the owners and decide where we would be placing all of the cameras and equipment. We asked the owner after our first visit to keep a journal with anything that happens as this might prove useful in the placement of the cameras and audio recorders. The owners informed us that the bulk of activity had been centered in one of the bathrooms. We placed a camera in that bathroom, one in the adults’ bedroom, one in the kitchen and one in the dining room that also captured the living room in the shot. We placed audio recorders throughout the home and also had audio recording in real time to a laptop that we could monitor from the monitoring station we set up on the outside carport. Around 9:00 pm we went totally dark in the home.

     We rotated teams in and out of the home during the night performing EMF sweeps, Evp sessions, spending time with the owners in their natural environment talking and asking questions and also trying to debunk some of the reported claims. The home uses a fireplace to heat and no central heat or air is running which makes it hard to prove that the cabinets in the bathroom that open and close could be caused by the heat or air cycling. We were unable to mimic the chandeliers movement by walking across the floor or closing doors or stomping.

     We did find a high EMF field in the living room where there was an electric heater plugged in. Following the path of the wires in the home, the reading on the floor and on the wall where the wiring would run was off the charts. Now this was only true when the heater was turned on, the readings were far less when the heater was in the off position. Neither one of our meters would measure a reading that high. In this same area, one of the team member’s I-Pod would come on while it was switched in the off position; this was the case while the heater was switched off. Talking with that same team member that owns the I-Pod, this is the only time this has ever happened and has not happened since that night.

     On December 5th 2008, our night was cut short but we did have an unusual experience that night. In the owner’s bedroom, one of the team members was sitting on the bed while two members were sweeping the room using EMF meters. The team member sitting on the bed suddenly smelled strong cigarette smoke and when he asked the other two team members to come check it out, the EMF meter stayed on continuously for a minute or two. When it finally went off, it never came back on again in that spot. When asking the owner about the cigarette smoke, she informed us that the person that they believe is with them enjoyed smoking. We wrapped up our investigation around 2:00 am.

     Upon reviewing all of the evidence, we found nothing on any of the audio recorders or anything unusual on the laptop recording the real time audio. We were, however, able to capture a piece of possible video evidence from that night on our camera in the bathroom where the most recent activity has been linked.

     Around 12: 56 am, the camera recorded a cord in the bathroom moving near the door handles on the cabinet. This cord belongs to the radio that is sitting on the left side of the bathroom counter. Upon reviewing all of the other camera angles from that night, every team member and resident of the home that was present are accounted for and are nowhere near that bathroom. Now while this video evidence is great to look at and the owners are gracious we captured it for them, we are by no means willing to say this location is haunted. We hope to visit this site again in the coming months and see if we can duplicate the movement of the cord and see what else our cameras might have missed that night.