We got back before noon yesterday, and I have to tell you, I had a wonderful time. We stayed at Robin's house, and she couldn't have made us feel more welcome. She cooked a nice meal, had plenty of coffee and soft drinks, and the atmosphere there was just so nice.. no stress or tension, just a really nice warm, right-at-home-in-Tennessee atmosphere. I really enjoyed myself.
They took us to a documented haunted cemetery down there, Shilo's, in Pigeon Forge. The team set up the equipment close to this really neat tent of spruce trees. By each corner stone of this lot, someone long ago had planted a tree. The trees were at least 30 feet tall by now, and had been trimmed at the bottom so that the branches above us were touching each other, making a natural tent directly over the whole lot.
It had been raining and we walked under those trees, and all of a sudden a bird up there in those branches objected and raindrops fell out of the limbs and it startled me - I had to laugh, it was a perfect beginning to the investigation. Ambiance!
There were no powerlines anywhere close to where we were, I looked. The emf meter just kept going, weakly, then it would stop, get stronger, then weak again, then strong again. We started taking photos, and I know I got an orb and 2 mist photos, but when I got home and tried to open them on the computer, everything opened just fine except for those three pictures. Those, my computer insisted, weren't valid images and couldn't be opened.
This cemetery is said to have a shadow man. Tall, in black clothes, he walks, letting people see him from time to time. Did I see him? I don't know. I saw someone. Tall and thin, and yes, he was dressed in dark clothes, but the thing was...he moved quickly, behind an 8 foot oblisque, which was in a row of about 6 other oblisques. I remembered what Robin had said about the shadow man, but what I'd seen looked too real to have been a ghost. I nudged Bonnie and told her what I'd seen, and told her I thought a real person was there in the dark cemetery with us, trying to mess with our heads. She nodded and we set off in the direction of the oblisques, to catch him. We figured it was someone who lived in the houses across the street.
We got to the oblisques but there was no one there. The way the cemetery is, there's really no way he could have gotten past us, or gone farther to the north, because we were able to see, it was dark, but lit by the lights of a hotel across the highway. Still.. I pretended to think it was a ghost just in case the guy was laying on the ground where we couldn't see him, and I said out loud, "I saw you, if you can, reach out and touch Bonnie." *laughs* Now, usually, when I say that in a haunted place, Bonnie will shake her head no and answer, "No, reach out and touch mom, leave me alone."... this time, she didn't. Like me, she was still sure this was a real person I'd seen in there, so she was sort of sarcastic with him, and said, "yeah, touch me."
We waited and nothing happened, so we wandered back over to the group. I glanced back, and again, he walked from behind one oblisque to behind another. I told Bonnie what I'd seen, and she just nodded. We still thought it was a real person. We watched for him to walk back out where we could see him but we didn't see any more of him.
We took a break and I was standing by the car, Bonnie was sitting beside it when she slapped her arm.. aloud she told us that a bug had bitten her arm. She tugged my hand and when I knelt by her she said "Mom, I didn't want to say anything out loud, they'll think I'm nuts, but that wasn't a bite, something pinched me."
Robin and Roger got some really cool orb pictures, and orbs on videotape. When it was time to go, Roger pointed to the tree that was beside the oblisques, and said he'd seen something, a form, but not a dog, go up the tree, but it didn't climb it, it just went upwards beside the trunk of the tree.
We got in the car and Bonnie showed me her arm. She had a really nice pinch bruise. Not a bug bite. I think the thing we thought was a real man, was this shadowman and he pinched her for her sarcasm!
Anyway, I came back and have nothing of paranormal value on my disks, the good ones wouldn't open. But it was a deliciously eerie investigation in a really neat dark and mysterious cemetery, and I had the time of my life! Thanks again, Robin, Lindsey and Roger, that was Greeeeeeeat!!