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Investigation #1 - Chestnut Hill Cemetery, (East Brunswick, NJ) - October 26, 2011
This was the first of two investigations I had lined up for today, as this was the one year anniversary of my beginning of becoming a paranormal investigator. The cemetery closes to the public around 4pm, so I wanted to get there early, investigate for a while and then get back home to recharge the batteries and get everything ready for the second investigation right at nightfall at the cemetery in Jamesburg where it all started.
Chestnut Hill was on the top of my get-to list for this year as it is very close to where I live. I had read online about a local paranormal group (New Jersey Ghost Organization) visiting the cemetery a few years ago, but no information as to what they found (if anything). So like Monmouth Battlefield, very little to go on and I would be starting from scratch on where to go. Though having driven past the cemetery dozens of times, I knew my focus would be on the older section of the cemetery.
Chestnut Hill is still an active cemetery for burials, though the more active part is a ways off in the opposite direction of where I would be at. As you can see in the picture below, the active part with more recent burials is far off in the distance. The hill I was standing on had tombstones dating back to 1860's and up.
The older part of the cemetery was pretty big too, extending well behind this photo. Down the hill behind me, across a road, up another hill and around in a big circle.
Trying to find parking in this area was pretty rough as the roadway only has room for one car at a time going in one direction. I was lucky enough to find a spot that looked like maintenance crews used to park in. I walked around to get a feel for the area, using my Digital recorder, Mel Meter and digital cameras to take photos with. First odd thing I noticed was that in some areas you could see depressions in the soil as if there was a burial there, but no headstone to mark it. I of course would apologize in advance saying I meant no disrespect by stepping on what be somebody's final resting spot. It may sound silly to do this, but I have found that being very respectful on my ghost hunts goes a long way to getting evidence and not getting followed home!
It didn't take very long I guess for my presence to be picked up on by whatever spirits inhabit the area. Just 2 minutes and 23 seconds in, I caught my first EVP (in the area near the picture above) Headphones recommended for EVP as usual due to their faintness.
Chestnut Hill EVP #1 - You hear me announcing that this is a chance for any spirit to reach out and make contact. As I take a pause to think for a moment, at the 4 second mark you hear a breathy word or two said just before I speak.
Now as I am walking along, I am monitoring my Mel Meter for any type of electro-magnetic spikes. I was getting a base reading of 0.03, where it should always read 0.00 unless you are near something giving off an EMF field. There was a cell phone tower about 1/2 mile away that could have been giving off the .03 reading. However as I walked slowly through the back end of the cemetery, occasionally it would spike upward from .04 to .07 and then drift back down to .03. Perhaps it was caused by the cell phone tower, maybe not. Just another question for the books.
Now almost one minute later, I get my second EVP of the session.
Chestnut Hill EVP #2 - As I am doing my standard announcement that nobody has any permission to follow me home, at the 7 second mark is a louder, male voice which sounds like it is saying "hate you". I'm not 100% on this, but that is what it sounds like to me. I had my wife listen to it and she thinks it might be saying "hey chuck".
Then one minute later, the same voice comes back. It was very hard to pick up at first as I was walking and the crackle of the leaves was on top of it.
Chestnut Hill EVP #3 - This is divided up into 4 parts. The first part is how the sound was recorded on my digital recorder. It is 2 seconds long and you can barely hear some words being spoken. The next part is the same but looped 3 times (all with a quick pause) is the same sound after the background noise has been removed. Now you can hear a voice saying what sounds like "Look Here".
As I climbed the hill and made my way around to the front of the cemetery, I noticed 3 grounds keepers in riding mowers making their way around to cut the grass and leaves that had fallen. One fellow rode up to me, an elderly Gentleman that I engaged in some talk with about the cemetery. We talked for about 15-20 minutes and I learned more from him than I could find online!
It turns out that Chestnut Hill cemetery also allegedly has the remains of slaves and Indians buried in the area. Not far from the cemetery I was told there was a house that was used as part of the underground railroad that was used to hide runaway slaves in. I guess quite a few died from the travel and being sick, so some are buried in the wooded area around the lower part of the cemetery. Marked perhaps with only a small stone. Also, another interesting fact was that the cemetery grounds (established in the1800's) has unmarked burial sites as well. It seems that the poor people who could not afford to have a proper burial would sneak onto the cemetery at night, dig up a grave and put their deceased family member / friend in the hole. Often times in nothing more than a burlap sack. Once in a while when digging a new plot today, there is the chance they might accidentally discover the final resting place of one of these fly by night burials!
As I had seen a few spots in the old burial area, where the ground is sunk in like a grave, but no headstone, perhaps these are the sites of a few of these burials? Not to mention the grounds keeper said the old area was the scariest place of the cemetery, but wouldn't acknowledge that ghosts or spirits were still wandering. Which made me wonder about this weird formation I saw and photographed.
No names, just tiny little headstones just clumped together in this little area. There was the headstone of a lady just off to the right out of the picture (died in 1957), but these looked older. Somebody had affixed some sticky blue foam or paper to a couple as you can see in the picture. The next time back I will have to find the grounds keeper I spoke to and ask him if he knows the story behind this odd formation.
This information from the grounds keeper put everything into a brand new light. No longer was it just an "old" cemetery, but now it was the final resting area for area Indians, slaves on the run and poor people who had to sneak in the middle of the night to bury their dead there. As I walked around trying to contact any spirits with the new information on hand, I did catch one more EVP.
Chestnut Hill EVP #4 - This voice again is a breathy sound. At 6 seconds you hear it again. I tried to remove the background noise to hear it better, but it did not do much to clear it up. It sounds like it is saying "go away." Again its subjective and you might hear something different than I am hearing.
Shortly afterward, I sat down and started an Ovilus X session to see what words would come out of the box. In the 10 minutes I did in "dictionary mode", 16 words were spoken, but had not rhyme or reason to them (Hearts, Alter, Shop, Low, Momma, Object, Tease, Computer, From, Follow, Afterlife, Computer, From, Lead, Fig, Hundred). Is it because more than one spirit is trying to use the Ovilus dictionary at the same time, so everybody is spitting out words? Is the box being studied so they can better learn to use it? Some places the box puts out words that have meaning, sometimes a random jumble.
However, when I switched it over to "phonetic mode", then a much clearer pattern developed. In phonetic mode on the Ovilus X, the spirits are supposed to manipulate the speech center to say their own words, rather than figuring out the words in the database in dictionary mode. For the next 5 minutes, the words that came out in phonetic mode were: Help, How, You Help, How, Hear, You, ?????, For Is, How , You, Help, Each Help.
Hear clearly the spirit is asking for help or asking how I can help. I could hear this, but alas the Ovilus X would not respond with any clues as to what help they needed. So I switched over to do a Ghost Box session near the edge of the woods. Here are the best clips from the session.
Chestnut Hill Ghost Box #1 - As I start the session asking what type of help they need at the 6 second mark near the end of the clip you hear a female voice call my name.
Chestnut Hill Ghost Box #2 - A short clip of the a male voice saying what sounds like "Help us."
Chestnut Hill Ghost Box #3 - This is a long but interesting clip.
From the start you hear a male voice that has a distinct dialect saying very
fast what sounds like....."What are y'all lookin at....ghosts?"
As I answer with a hello, a blend of female to male voice
says...."Roy...says hello." As I am asking for a name at 7
seconds you hear a male voice respond, "Talk me". At the
end when I ask for a name again, a female voice responds, "Pat".
This next part is where I get into asking these spirits about Heaven and Hell. Previous attempts at other places have been proven fruitless, as the spirits had been tight lipped about everything.
Chestnut Hill Ghost Box #4 - As I am asking if anybody is around, at 3 seconds you hear a voice say "Chuck". I then ask about Heaven and Hell. At 8 seconds a voice says "Pray" followed by two words I cannot make out. As I ask again, a voice responds "Just us" at 18 seconds.
When I switch over to ask about what life is like in the afterlife, at 27 seconds a sorrowful response of "Not to great." comes out. I clearly hear this as I respond to the words. A few seconds later you hear me make mention of a red fox. At this point an adult red fox came running out of no where, about 50 feet from me and ran past off into the woods. A beautiful sight, I wish I had my camera handy to snap a picture of it.
The rest of the session was so-so, nothing really worth noting here.
Chestnut Hill has without a doubt been a place I will need to return to in the future for more investigations. The cries for help coming from the Ovilus X and the Ghost Box, plus the dreary setting the spirits are experiencing that are still stuck there really makes me think. I did offer my services to help cross them, but I did not get any replies that may have indicated a successful transition. From this initial investigation, it seems like there could be a few souls not at rest because of the way they were buried and forgotten in unmarked graves. Hopefully myself as well as maybe other future investigators might be able to give them a chance to be heard and maybe give them a chance to make peace with themselves to eventually cross over.
