Investigation in Ash, NC - Final report
On 1/6/09, Dianna, Bonnie and I traveled to Ash, NC where we were joined by Tonya in order to investigate a residence where the owner has seen what he called "orbs" in the garage/recreation area of his home. I will not give out the address but suffice it to say it was in or near Ash, NC.
We stopped at Donnie's store, chatted with him briefly and he gave us directions to get to his house so we could set up our equipment. He mentioned two monitors that he normally sees the "orbs" in that are in the garage area of the house. We arrived at his house approximately 6:05 PM. We entered by going through the garage. There were no vehicles in the garage area.
The garage was quite large. You could easily park 1 full size vehicle inside with lots of room on both sides. Standing at the garage door, to the left was a full-size pool table, lots of windows along the wall and a bar along the left portion of the back wall. To the right of the bar was a wood stove, a couch and recliner and a small landing where a desk/office area was. Believe me it was a nice garage. I'm sure you can see from the pics that are posted.
We immediately began to set up equipment and take some initial temperature readings. I set up the video camera and also took some area shots to get a feel for the layout. We noticed the monitors and didn't really see anything out of the ordinary there. The camera's that were connected to Donnie's system were cordless video cameras that work well in the daylight or dark. They each had a ring of approximately 30 infrared LEDs to activate the night vision and were pretty bright actually. We noted that the inside temperature was approximately 68* and this was with the garage door up. We noted that one camera was of the outside area immediately outside the garage, and the other was pointed to cover the inside area.
Donnie arrived approximately 6:30. He went immediately to the wood stove, lit it and then came over to the area where the monitors were. We extinguished the light and all stared at the monitor as he told us about what he usually sees. He described them as "bubbles" or "orbs" and it was evident from his conversation that he watches Ghost Hunters as he knew all the terms. He stated that some appeared to be clear, some were smoke filled and others seemed to have pixies or fairies inside. He also said some were glowing and others twinkled on and off.
As Donnie continued to tell his story we started to see the "bubbles" on the monitor. They would rise from bottom to top and sometimes streak across the screen from right to left. Most were not stationary at all, instead they would move across the screen. There wasn't any set pattern and there were times that we could see several at once and then go 10 minutes without seeing anything.
I set my video camera on night-shot and pointed it in the same general area, in the hopes that I would pick up whatever we were seeing on the surveillance cameras. I let the camera run from 6:45 until approximately 8:00 and didn't get one single instance that I can positively say was what we were seeing on the monitor. I have over an hour of video with nothing at all on it.
We took several random shots inside the garage. Tonya got one shot with an orb, Dianna got one and Bonnie got at least one that has an orb. All of these orbs, in our opinions are most likely dust. All of the shots that I am aware of that contain orbs are posted in this topic.
We did attempt to capture EVPs but did not get a single hit there either. I think we got a nice story though as Donnie was definitely a talker and we got most of the story on the video or one of the recorders. EMF sweeps also did not indicate any activity.
We terminated the investigation approximately 8:25 PM and headed back to Tonya's house for a great cup of coffee.
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Conclusion: None of the team felt anything unusual at all during this investigation. We found absolutely no evidence of paranormal activity. This is not to say that there was none, only that we didn't experience it. Additionally we did conclude that the "bubbles" that Donnie is seeing are dust and or small articles in the air that are being reflected back to the camera by the infrared light. He stated that he sees these things with the door up or down and with or without the stove going.
We did enjoy getting to meet Tonya and her family and spending some time with them, even though it was short.