Investigation #002

                                                                    L-shaped anomaly by Jonathan                                                                                               

Location: Avenel House

Date: 6/1/2006

City: Bedford

State: Virginia

Case details:

The Avenel House in Bedford is one of the most famous local haunted houses, and the most famous in Bedford. Legends of "The White Lady of Avenel" go back many, many years. The house is now owned by the Avenel Historical Society of Bedford, and tours of the house are given regularly. Jonathan and I went to visit and take external photographs and met one of the directors, who told us about the tours after we inquired. We arranged one such tour and were allowed permission to investigate the house afterwards.

Members and a few friends of Ghostec came together at the beautiful old Avenel House for both our tour and investigation on July 1, 2006. Peggy, Sandy and son Jonathan, Scott and his wife Susie and myself represented the Ghostec team for the night. We were also accompanied by my daughter Cindy, husband Don, son Stephan and his wife Elizabeth, who were attracted to the tour of the house. They were all interested and excited; they decided to quietly stay while we did the investigation.  Our invited guests were Darrell Laurant, staff writer for our local newspaper and his wife Gail.

You guessed it... it was quite a group. As the tour ended, the team began to set up equipment for a couple of hours of taping and recording. We did an entire sweep of the house, to obtain ambient temperatures and used an EMF meter to rule out all naturally occurring or man made  electomagnetic readings. We put our nightshot camera in the Lee bedroom, so named because General Robert E. Lee stopped by to enjoy time with the Burwell family on his travels throughout Virginia and always slept in this room. Ghostly reports in this room are the bed covers having a depressed look, with indented pillows from time to time when no one has been in the room. Our cameras did not catch anything.

Jonathan, Darrell and Gail came with me to the upstairs board room to sit in the dark and do some recordings. Scott and Susie were across the hall in another bedroom to take photos and recordings.  Peggy and Sandy took the downstairs Parlor to record and try to tap into their feelings. Cindy, Don, Stephan and Elizabeth quietly walked around both inside and out doing recordings. Stephan was kind enough to do about 200 photos inside and out for us.

Jonathan recorded one very faint EVP in the closed Lee room and it is posted on the site under EVP section. It is low and volume is needed to hear it. It says, "Help Me." The definitive proof of this one is that Jonathan recorded in front of the camcorder showing there was no one in the room. We are still assessing photos and will update this report at a later time. We will also be returning for further investigations in this grand old home.

Sandy was the first to detect a fragrance that no one could identify. Gail offered it might be her Vanilla lotion, but it was not; it was more like a Wisteria or Lavendar smell that passed through several of us before the evening was over. We searched for air freshners and/or anything that it might have been. Nothing! Here again, we have to discount smells, but it is odd that it occurs from time to time in a haunted house. This odor was one of those whispy things that seems to pass by on a tiny air current and then is gone.

Many thanks to our gracious host Taffney! She was our tour guide.

Sue

Ghostec