Paranormal Investigations Nova Scotia October 18, 2014

On October 18, 2014 Paranormal Investigations Nova Scotia spent the evening at the Colchester Historeum. The following is their findings:

Date and Time: October 18 2014 – 7:00 PM – 10:30 PM

Moon Phase: Waning Crescent 23% of full

Weather: Mild and cloudy, +16 C

Location: Colchester Historeum 29 Young Street Truro Nova Scotia

Investigators: Earl Lattie, Darcy O’Neill, Dawn-Leigh Werenka, Amanda Dyke + 16 guests and paranormal fans.

Paranormal History of Area: The Colchester Historeum is a location that Paranormal Investigations Nova Scotia has investigated in the past and gotten evidence. The common story told about the building is that a labourer that was working on the exterior of the building was on his scaffolding platform when he saw the face of an elderly woman looking out of the archive window. Startled, he went inside the building and up to archives only to find not only nobody present, but the windows were papered over on the inside. There was no way he could have seen anybody looking out at him. A previous curator of the historeum was constantly losing scissors in the building, and was also firmly convinced that the building was haunted.

Baseline Temperature:  The ambient room temperature varied between each floor, which is to be expected (cooler in the basement, quite warm in the attic.) Several people mentioned walking through cold spots, and the sensation of a cold draft passing by them.

Baseline EM Readings:  While baseline EM readings were quite low, each group throughout the night experienced spikes in the EM field. These readings registered on both the K2 meters as well as the MEL meter. Many of the strongest readings were registered around historic items and artifacts, none of which would be emitting a power source. The highest readings of the night were registered in the attic meeting room.

Camera Evidence: No anomalies were caught on camera.

Video Evidence: No anomalies were caught on night vision or full spectrum video camera.

EVP – Ghost Box: Relevant answers and names were recorded during EVP and spirit box sessions, including the same voices and names that we recorded during our first investigation at the Colchester Historeum in 2013. On several occasions our K2 meters were showing high readings as the responses were being recorded. 

Laser Grid Evidence:  Several guests reported seeing something moving through the beams of the grid, showing movement. A group also reported seeing weird lights near the windows that the workman reported seeing the older woman looking out at him. I and other members of my team have seen something similar to this at a location we investigate in Hants County.

Investigator/Guest Evidence: Throughout the evening guests that were working with the members of Paranormal Investigations Nova Scotia reported a lot of activity in meeting room on the top floor as well as in archives. Several guests had the sensation of something touching them or moving through them during the investigation, as well as noticing physical objects moving on their own. On two separate occasions a picture and a bassinet/carriage moved on their own in front of witnesses who swore nobody was touching the objects at the time. 

The laser grid was set up to shine its beams across the length of the archives, with particular attention to the windows that the worker saw someone looking out at him from. Movement and odd lights were reported by guests watching the grid, and roughly at the same time one of my investigators saw what she reported as a shadow figure moving through the basement, in the area where the wood working equipment is stored.

We greatly enjoyed our second investigation of the building, and are looking forward to continuing with find raising events with museum staff in the future. All of the feedback that I have gotten from the people who participated has been positive, with many glowing comments about the event and the building itself. Several people who attended the event have messaged me asking how to get involved with Paranormal Investigations Nova Scotia as well as where to buy gear of their own.

Thank you to the curator and staff at the museum for once again being so eager to host us, it is an event that we look forward to eagerly each year. Thank you also to the great crowd that showed up to investigate with us, it was amazing to meet everyone and to share this fascinating hobby with members of the public. 

What exactly do you do all day?

That's a question I get from a lot of my friends, especially in the slower winter months. My usual response is "curator stuff" followed by an admission of other administrative tasks. On a side topic I was asked recently by one of our volunteers Beth (I'm going to name drop with volunteers so you get a slight sense of how many people are involved here) to try out bogging a little more, to give people an idea of what goes on in the museum.

For some reason it hit me the other day (Jan. 20, 2014) when I arrived at work that I should keep track of my tasks so that I could properly convey how I spend my time. Please keep in mind that Mondays are an entirely different beast than other days during the week, because on Mondays I am at work but the museum is not open to the public. Also, every single day here is different, which is a big part of the appeal for me. I love having something different going on to keep things interesting.

I will try to keep this somewhat entertaining. Lets begin!

9:00am. Arrive at work right on time (in case the bosses are reading this)

9am to 9:45am - shovel snow and put out salt. We hire a person to shovel our snow for us, but there wasn't a lot down. I try to keep it as tidy as possible though, the volunteers appreciate it.

9:45am - 10am. TEA TIME and helping our Archivist Nan with our digital database of collections (photographs and artefacts). Quickly checked some emails to see if anything was urgent.

Couldn't get through my day without it.

10am - 11:30am preparing items for donation to a local museum with the CHS Secretary Pauline. Normally I don't get to actually focus on a project for this duration of time. Usually there over 9000 distractions but Monday I was lucky and was able to keep at the job. 

By preparing items I mean; cataloguing what is being given, photographing, moving and of course all of the paper work that goes along with that. Pauline is currently leading the charge to get our basement organized.

Oh the paperwork....

11:30am - 12pm help our exhibit developers Elinor and Donna with our collections database (the same database mentioned above) and reply to a few emails before lunch.

12pm - 1pm. Lunch. I did one of these 4 things:

a) worked through lunch because I am a curating machine

b) went home and prepared a wonderfully healthy meal

c) grabbed some groceries at Sobeys and read comic books in my office

d) Cpt. Sub and a short walk through Victoria Park

1pm -2:10pm many random tasks, SPEED ROUND: updating office calendar, meeting with volunteers (Jim and Carol), scheduling appointments, more exhibit committee talks, filing, more filing, etc.

I also make sure to check out the Truro Daily on a daily basis. I think its important to keep up with the community. Besides, I get asked every other day if I read "that article in the Truro Daily" so its good to keep current. As luck would have it there was an article that the Historeum helped out with a little bit. The article can be found here.

The Glebe House

2:10pm - 2:30pm TEA TIME and picking a photo for our Facebook page. I could write an entire blog article on picking and posting pictures to the facebook page. It is not nearly the easy task that one would image. First of all picking a picture is political, I try to ensure that I don't flood our page with Truro photos given that we are a county museum. I actually do try to spread out the geographical backgrounds of our photos.

Its also hard not to be biased. Example: I love posting pictures of dogs or pictures of wooden ships (if you have a photo of the 2 combined from Colchester please send it!). But I understand people want to see different things. I have found that people love classy house architecture, so I found what I considered a beautiful house photo from not-Truro. Turns out that everyone has heard of this house and loved it, the post was one of my most popular to date.

Farnham Road. R.H. Doane House, Bible Hill.

2:30pm - 3:45pm. Setting up exhibit hallway and chairs.

One of our volunteers Terry stopped by to help move the big heavy walls in the gallery to accommodate the next exhibit The Lewis Family: Truro's Titans of Industry. The walls in question form an interior shell of our gallery, a room within a room. Moving them is a task reserved for 2 or more, and involves a bit of work.

Moving the walls can be compared to hanging a painting on a wall. You set them up, then move them again, and again. Afterwards I set up the 3rd floor for Dr. Malcolm MacLeod's upcoming lecture. Again Mondays are the best day to do out of office tasks like this.

3:45pm - 4:30pm preparing press release and contacting media publications

Making sure the public knows about our upcoming events is very important to the livelihood of our organization. We strive to get as much exposure as possible, and the various publications have been very good to us. 

That being said there are a lot of places to contact, and you have to know the print schedule for all of them. This is especially important for monthly publications, where if you miss the deadline you completely miss that issue/month.

4:30pm-5:00pm  head to the post office and then home.

So that is my grand exciting day as Curator/Administrator for the Colchester Historeum. As you can tell the role is very supportive. I spend the largest part of my time facilitating and helping our volunteers with their various projects, which are the backbone of the Society.