Date: September 20, 2003
Time: The investigation began at 8:30 P.M. and was completed at approximately 11:30 P.M.
Location: The Fireman’s Hall Museum in Philadelphia, PA.
Equipment: Sony M-527V Microcassette Analog Recorder, 2 Panasonic IR Digital Recorders, RCA RP 5007A Digital Recorder, Sony Video 8XR Handicam with Nightvision, EPD Raynger ST4L Thermal Scanner, NightOwl Nightvision scope, Canon Sure Shot 60 Zoom 35 mm. camera.
Weather: Outside it was overcast and in the 70s, inside the temperature varied between 68 and 71 degrees. Air conditioner blowers in the ceiling caused occasional fluctuations.
History: The building that houses the museum was built in 1902 as a firehouse. The first floor was used to house the engines and the stable, the second floor was the barracks and living area, and the third floor was for the storage of grain for the horses. Today the first two floors house the museum and the third floor is used for storage and office space. There is also a basement which is used for storage and houses the furnace and air conditioning system.
Type Of Location: Museum
How Many Occupants: There is no one living at the museum although our hosts for the night, the museum director and his wife, were present on the first floor while we conducted investigations of the second and third floor and the basement.
Pets: None
Those Present: Myself, Tonya and Lew
Report: We arrived at 8:00 P.M. and after being given a short tour of the museum’s layout. I immediately noticed several things that would affect investigation conditions. The museum sits directly on 2nd Street. Since this was a Saturday night, the street was busy and car noise could be heard when we were at the front of the building. The air conditioner blowers in the ceiling were also quite loud, particularly on the third floor, which would make it difficult to do recording sessions. Also, it appeared that it would be very difficult to do any type of serious investigation on the first floor because of the large number of windows that permeated that room and the large fire trucks that sat in the middle of the floor.
We decided to begin our investigation on the second floor after setting our video cameras up on the third floor. Our investigation of this floor began at 8:35 and lasted for fifty minutes. After turning on my night vision scope, I found another minor obstacle that would affect the investigation. There were many reflective surfaces that created false positive possibilities (in fact, at one point on the third floor, I was able to create a nice night vision orb by angling the site of my scope slightly off of a reflective surface of some type). We split up each going our own ways. Shortly after we began, Tonya told me that she had gotten a high temperature reading in the small room which connected the front meeting style room to the barracks room. I used my thermal scanner to attempt to help her find a natural cause for the phenomena, but was unable to after a short scan. I witnessed nothing unusual with my night vision scope on this floor and took no photos. At one point, I did measure a rapid temperature change near the foot of the steps leading to the third floor. The temperature jumped from 70 to 78 and quickly dropped back again. When I moved the scanner slightly away from the location, the same thing happened again. I spent at least five minutes scanning the area from all angles and distances trying to find a natural cause for the phenomena, but was unable to. There were no vents overhead in that location and no naturally occurring hot spots. There was a door next to the staircase (currently unused) that went into the small room mentioned earlier (where Tonya recorded a hot spot). I also did a careful scan of that area after this incident and found no temperature changes (however, I did notice that the temperature fluctuated slightly in one area because a vent was overhead). The unusual temperature reading at the foot of the stairs was the only incident that I recorded on this floor.
We agreed to hold two recording sessions on the second floor. All of us got together in the small room (mentioned above) first because we believed it was the quietest room. Tonya was using two different types of digital recorders and I was using an analog recorder with an external microphone and a digital recorder. After this first session we did a separate recording session in the barracks room. After listening to the recorders that Tonya and I had (after the investigation), we made an interesting observation which will require further study. Tonya had set her RCA digital on constant play. The analog was also on constant play. The two Panasonic recorders were voice activated. Upon review, we noticed that the voice activated recorders were filled with many static-like loud sounds which might be interpreted as “evps” but the other two were not (Tonya did record a potential evp on the RCA, but there only appears to be one). Since there was some traffic noise, the voice activated recorders were going on and off even when I was not asking questions. I suspect that these recorded “evp” noises might actually be natural noises resulting from problems in the voice activated digital recorders (because the noise clearly did not sound like cars). This is something that we will continue to experiment with and examine closely in the future.
We next moved to the third floor and moved the video cameras to the second. This area was smaller and the blowers were very noisy. We investigated for about 25 minutes and did one recording session. In this session, all of the recorders were on constantly because of the blower noise and no EVPs were recorded. I observed nothing and recorded no unusual data on this floor.
Finally, after a short break, we investigated the basement. It was noisy in the basement as well. We did not even attempt a recording session and I experienced no unusual phenomena.
We concluded the investigation with a recording session on the first floor.
Impression: The only unusual incident that I observed was the rapid temperature change (an increase) on the second floor for which I was unable to find a natural cause. It is possible that it was the result of some type of draft, but the fact that the temperature increased by 8 degrees makes that possibility unlikely. I did not record any evps anywhere in the museum and observed nothing with night vision. Currently, I have insufficient evidence to conclude that paranormal activity is occurring at the museum, although I can not discount the possibility either.
I would like to thank our hosts for allowing us to conduct this investigation.
Andy K.
9/25/03