Hi everyone, thanks for listening. Most of you who have followed this podcast, know that I have a paranormal investigation team, although my team and I have not done any investigations for a while due, to New Zealand being a very small place and lack of accessible places to check out, cost, and personal things happening in individual team member’s lives. I do miss it and being with my team. So I was pretty excited to be able to speak with a fellow investigator. One moreover, who fronts a team of all female investigators in the USA, called the Soul Sisters. So without further ado, are you willing to walk with me into this part of the Shadowlands and see what awaits us there? Then let’s begin.

In 2014, Dr Kristy Sumner coupled her passion for travel, history and the paranormal when she formed Soul Sisters Paranormal, an all-female team, made up of Sumner, her two sisters and two friends. The investigators of Soul Sisters Paranormal travel to some of the most historic, and reportedly haunted, location in the U.S. in an attempt to determine for themselves if spirit activity does exist and to highlight the rich history of each location. Individually, each member of the team is an accomplished professional in her respective field, and each holds a Masters, PhD or JD degree. For those who may not be aware a JD degree, is a law degree.

Prior to forming Soul Sister Paranormal, Dr Sumner, who holds a PhD in Public Affairs with an emphasis on Criminal Justice, was a senior director for a Registered Traveller company focused on biometric clearances for the traveling public. She was a senior consultant for a biometric credentialing company, and she was college professor at Metro State College of Denver and the University of Central Florida.

I am very happy to welcome Kristy Sumner from the Soul Sisters Paranormal Investigation team.

Soul Sisters Paranormal

Kristy: So we started in 2014 and we as you said were a group of all female investigators there’s five of us. And that includes myself my twin sister, our younger sister, and then two family friends who we’ve known for years. And we actually started as an essentially a girls trip, ‘cause, we wanted – we all live in different parts of the US. So we wanted something that we could do to get together four, or five times a year.

And so, the first one that we that we organized was in Moundsville, West Virginia at the Moundsville State Penitentiary And we have a familiar connection with that, because, our grandpa was a prison guard there when the prison was in operation. So we have some family ties. So we went to the prison and we stayed the night there, and it was a very rudimentary investigation. We had some night vision video cameras. A couple of digital cameras, and some voice recorders. And we went in with the mindset of, you know, this is gonna be a spooky thing for us to do. But the evidence that we captured that night was so compelling to us, that we really decided to formalize our group. We became Soul Sisters Paranormal, and we wanted to really delve into the history of these haunted locations. And really kind of figure out for ourselves if they are truly, truly in fact haunted. And the history behind those hauntings and the locations.  With the idea being that we could, provide some some research, and some evidence into not only the historical aspect of the location, but also the paranormal aspect.

So again in 2014 we decided to really formalize the group, and we go probably about four –  three to four times a year on what I would call a big investigation. So somewhere commercial like Moundsville or Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum or Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary.  And then we supplement those with smaller investigations, such as residential investigations. Or just smaller weekend investigations where one or two of us will go.

Marianne: Right. And, and given that you live in the states the areas to travel is quite a distance, and quite a commitment in terms of time and money. So you have to be fairly serious about what you’re doing.

Yes, Ma’am. You’re absolutely right. And for us it is a passion. First and foremost, it allows us a set time to get together as a family friends and it is something that we enjoy, because, we do get to visit these historical locations. I mean, not many people can say they’ve stayed the night in a lighthouse, or a prison. Or a civil war fort, or a hospital, or Revolutionary War Fort. Not many people can say that. So, we can. So that’s the history behind the location, is the first and foremost driving factor for us. The secondary becomes the paranormal. Again, to try to supplement that history that we researched before we go to the locations. So, it is a time commitment. It is a financial commitment. We are self-funded.  But for us, you know it’s, it’s something that you really can’t put a price tag on because of the experience that we’re getting from it.

Right. Absolutely. Tell me a little bit about the background of your team members. I understand that you all come with comprehensive education’s.

Yes, Ma’am. I hold PHD, my twin sister has a PHD, as well. Both of those are in public administration with an emphasis on criminal justice. And then our younger sister has a Juris Doctorate, which is a lawyer. And then Cora, another friend of ours on the group, has her Juris Doctorate as well, and she’s also a lawyer.  And then Kim has a master’s degree in education and a historical background.  So we do approach it as a research based group.  What, what our goal is, is to try to bring some professionalism to the paranormal community. Not to say that other teams aren’t professional by any means. That’s not what I’m saying.  But you know for us, we want a strict look and feel.  If that makes sense? A strict style and branding, because, we do put time and effort into this and we want it to show, that we take every aspect of it seriously. So for example when we go to a location and we do a day tour beforehand, we all have branded polo shirts.  And during the investigation we all have branded T-shirts, and that’s just for us. It’s just one of those ways that we can kind of show that we are very serious about what we do, and how we approach our investigations

Right! And it shows in your videos. And I was actually quite impressed with the amount of …. For our listeners, Soul Sisters has a YouTube channel that shows their investigations. And\ it’s actually very well produced. I was very impressed with it from a videography point of view.  Like your intro. Your reveal and the way you do the history of the sites.  It’s quite comprehensive. And I can see your educational background coming out in the way you approach this.  That’s very obvious to me. And it’s really quite refreshing to see actually.

Well, thank you for saying that. And, I do appreciate you pointing that out, because, for us that is the driving factor. If we can provide some information on these locations, maybe we can help provide some preservation efforts as well. And we really started these videos – you know, we’ve done some investigations prior to my actually beginning the videos.  But I had so many family and friends saying, what was it like? What did you capture while you’re in there? What does it look like? What does it feel like? So, you know, I really started to put these videos together.  And the first couple, it’s definitely a grow as you learn, type of situation. So the first couple kind of looked like they were made in my basement but, you know, it is one of those where I really kind of want to stress again, that history. Because, that’s the driving factor. And if I could throw out a historical nugget or historical fact that some people might not know, that to me is very rewarding, as well.  Along with the paranormal evidence that we capture. So again thank you for that compliment.  I really do appreciate that, because, that’s what I’m trying to do. I’m trying to showcase that historical piece as well.

Well, I thought you did very well. I was, I was quite impressed with that. And I guess I recognized in you, the same sort of thing I do for my podcast. Like I do so much research, you know, especially if it’s a subject I’m not too familiar with.  Anything from ten to thirty hours of research.  Just so I can present facts that are legitimate facts, and not speculation.  Because, you know, we’re not about speculating.  We’re about educating really aren’t we?  And of course entertaining. Because there’s that aspect to it as well.

Of course there has to be. You’ve got you’ve got to hold the audience to some – for some reason. And so there’s that entertainment value for sure. But, you know, we do try to –  like I said, try to find those those pieces of nuggets of information that somebody may not know or may have that oh I didn’t know that. And that meant it may prompt them to visit the locations and put money into it to actually preserve it.

Right. Now how do you actually approach your investigations once you’ve done your research? How do you actually approach the investigations?  Like, well for me with my paranormal team, we always go in with a very respectful attitude.  And first and foremost, we try to remove any mundane, physical causes of what people could be seeing. And then we – anything that’s left, obviously has to be paranormal.  Or, at the very least, unexplained. But we always treat the spirit like we would treat any living person

Yeah absolutely. You’re absolutely right and I love that, that mindset, because, that’s exactly what we try to do.  We approach our investigations is, we’ll do some comprehensive research before we go. To try to figure out, you know, why is this location here? So for example; Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary, in Tennessee. You know we want to find out why was that prison built? Why was it built there? What is the background behind it?  What are some of the paranormal claims that are there?  And see, if we can marry that with the history. So we do a very copious research of, of the area. Of the location.  And then we, we go and take a day tour beforehand.  So either the Fri –  most of our investigations will occur on a Saturday night, just because of travel purposes. So either Friday or Saturday morning, we’ll take a day tour, and you’re right. What we do is we try to look for environmental factors, that could influence our investigation that night.

So we look for street lights. We look for, are there any any dogs barking in the neighborhood? Are there any houses that have children? What is going to cause…. Are there train tracks? Is there anything that can cause some interference that we could explain away rather than paranormal? And then also, during that investigation, we will scout out locations of where we think we’re going to leave our stationary equipment that night. And that just saves us setup time when we go back for the investigation. So if we already know. OK, hey we’re putting a camera here, here, and here. And a voice recorder here, here, and here, we can just go to those spots immediately.  Set them out.  Deploy them, and then get back to base camp and get ready for our actual investigation. So we do a lot during –  we take a lot of notes during the day and just the the day tour, so we can prepare for that nighttime investigation.

And then when we get to the investigation everybody sort of has their set roles. So for example, I’ll take some cameras and go to a location.  Jenny will take some and go and set all of that out.  Make sure everything’s running. And then we come back, and we decide how we want to do our EVP sessions.  Or, what hand-held equipment we’re going to take on certain sweeps of the area, or the location. So we kind of have a very detailed plan. That’s not to say it’s militant. You know?  There is some flexibility in that. But, you know, it’s for us a very detailed plan that works.  Because, we all have our our goals and our roles, in order to save time.  Because, in some of these locations, you know, you only have eight – ten – twelve hours.  So, you want to get in and really delve into the investigation.  Rather than spending time, you know, putting out cameras and voice equipment etc.

Oh absolutely! Especially since you travel so far. You know, your time is extra precious, so you want to make it count. So I totally get it that. Now when we were talking the other day, before we organized this interview. You mentioned that –  on the subject of ruling out environmental factors, you mentioned a particular case. I wonder if you’d like to share that again?  Because, I thought it was actually really awesome.

Oh, absolutely. So you know again, we do have those –  when you go into these cases especially for residential or business cases. Those that we’re called in to investigate.  You know, the first thing that you want to do, is you want to inform the owner that yes you believe them.  You believe, that they believe, that something is going on.  And you either want to find evidence of what’s causing that, or you know, find evidence of paranormal. So –  but, we’re not afraid to tell homeowners or business owners that while we believe you, there are environmental factors that are causing these issues and it’s not paranormal.

So the example that you’re speaking of we had a business owner approach us and it was a new business. And he had just gotten, what he believed, was a haunted artifact that he put in the store. And after that, he said paranormal activity started.  His night vision cameras were going off at certain times, when nobody was there and he couldn’t figure out the reason why? So he asked us to come in. So we went in and we stayed there for several hours that night, and we weren’t getting any indication on any of our hand-held equipment that there was anything paranormal.  Our K2 meters weren’t going off. our REM pods weren’t going off. You know none of the typical signs that we get that, that paranormal activity exists. None of that was alerting to us. So we set up our own stationary cameras and voice recorders and left the business to run –  and we left all that equipment to run throughout the remainder of the night.

And so when we were –  when we were doing the review of that footage, what I noticed was, every time he told me an alert was happening on his night vision camera, my night vision camera was seeing a car go by, because, it was on a corner. So when the car would turn, the headlights would bounce off of a mirror and essentially reflect into his night vision camera.  And it would turn the night vision camera from day to night. And it would turn it on. So, it would sense movement because it’s essentially resetting itself for night vision after the car went by. And, but –  because, of the angle of my camera, it wasn’t doing that.  But, I could see what was going on. So I told him.  I said I think what’s happening is the, the times you’re telling me your camera goes off, it’s coinciding with these headlights. So, either remove the mirror, or tweak your camera so it’s not pointing directly at the mirror. And he did.  And all indications are that his, you know, all of that activity ceased.  Because, that’s what was going on.

So, if we can find out that type of environmental evidence, then that’s obviously what we’re going to put forth.  Because, you know for us it’s already hard enough to, to try to tell people or convince people that, that that paranormal activity exists. If we can debunk it as environmental, then that’s what we’re going to do, as well.  We feel that’s our job to do as well. So that’s that was the example.

I thought that was really clever sleuthing. I thought that was quite well done!

Oh thank you…

So, do you get….  Do you – I know you do all these public places.  Do you do many private investigations?  Many homes and businesses?

Yes, Ma’am. I would say probably three or four a year really depending. You know we do have some uptakes on some years and some we don’t really get get called.  A lot of –  because, you know, we we do have a presence on the internet, a lot of people from different locations will call us.  Like, we had a woman from Indiana contact us and ask if we could come up. Unfortunately, that is a little bit of a distance for us, but, we do have a network of other investigators that we communicate with pretty frequently. So in that instance we’ll call in somebody else and say you know what we can’t make it physically.  Here’s somebody that we trust, that you can call in. So we do utilize that, that network of of other paranormal investigators in the community. But, to answer your question.  Yes, we do residentials, and business investigations as well.

And, like I said before most of the time you know we really start off with, yes we believe that there’s something going on and we want to come in and investigate that for you. Let’s get some background information from you.  And, we really start with, with that mindset. Let’s get some background information on you, on the building, on the location. What could be happening that could be causing this? And then we will actually give them a voice recorder and say; take this voice recorder into your home, or your business, and let it run. And give it back to me.  And, we’ll see what if we hear, if anything.  Or, what we think could be going on. And then after that, we will tailor our investigation depending on anything that we find after that. So we really work with the homeowner and the business owner to try to delve into what is going on.

Now there has been several instances where we do obviously catch Paranormal Activity and in that case, you know, we’ll convey to the homeowner or the business owner that you know we don’t remove spirits. That’s not what we profess to do. We’ll give you evidence that they that something is going on in your home that we can’t explain. And if you want them removed then we have a demonologist, or somebody that we can call.  That –  Or a priest, that can help you remove that entity.  Or, you know, we can give you methods to live with it. You know how to –  if it hasn’t harmed you.  If it’s not a negative entity or negative threat, you know, we can give you pointers on how to actually live with it.  If that’s what you want to do. So we really discuss options as well, during those cases. Which is a lot of fun.

That’s really good.  So, you give people choices, so it takes away from them, that sense of helplessness.  Giving them choices, yeah. That’s, that’s really great and I really like your attitude.  What is the most…. What is the home or business investigation that stands out to you the most, that you are able to talk about?

Well, probably the one that I mentioned.  And that again, that was environmental factors.  Because, that was just –  you know, to us was really interesting. We actually did one and this is kind of a personal one. And this sticks out and this was to my family home, my Grandmother. This was a couple of years ago. Let me go back just a second.

So my Granddaddy passed away in nineteen-eighty-six and a couple of years ago I had a dream, that he came to me in, in my dream.  And, he was in a very specific spot in my grandma’s house. And, you know, he came to me. It was it was a two or three-night dream. And I remember it so vividly. And I was talking to my Mom and I said I had this dream.  Granddaddy came to me in this dream and he’s not saying anything.  But, I think he’s trying to give me some type of a message and my Mom was like, Just ask him what he wants?

So the next time he came to me in the dream. The very next night, I in the dream, I said “Granddaddy what do you want?” And he said, “I’m waiting for your Nana and you’re going to be getting a call soon.” And within two weeks of that dream my Nana, my Grandmother was in an accident and she fell and broke her hip, and she never really recovered from that. So we ended up putting her into hospice. And so the day she passed, and with permission from my family, I, I said to my sister –  I said Jenny she’s gonna go and meet Granddaddy at that house. I know it!  And, I know the spot that they’re going to meet up at.

So because she was in hospice for, for such an extended period of time we’d had the electricity turned off in the house. And so we went to the house, there’s no electricity.  We went to the spot where Granddaddy appeared to me in the dream. We went to that spot. We had two K2 meters going. A gray one and a black one. And we had some voice recorders going.  And, I said you know, “Granddaddy are you here? If you’re here, can you light up this gray meter?” And the gray meter lit up.  And I said, “Nana, if you’re here can you light up the black meter?”  And, the black meter lit up. And so, through that series of questions, we were able to determine that that Granddaddy and Nana met up.  And that they were together. And that they were going to pass on and ascend to whatever is next, together.

And to validate that, two weeks later we went back. Same spot same K2 meters and everything.  And, not a blip on the radar! Not a blip on anything, on any of our hand-held equipment. And for me, that was probably the most compelling.  Not just for paranormal, but just for my own peace of mind, that one: there is something that’s next. And two: we’re not going to have to face it alone. And it brought me a lot of peace. And so I would have to say if you want the example of the best residential that’s, that’s the example I’d go with.

Oh that’s, that is actually really, really touching. And that certainly would have helped your grief process you –  for you and your sister, to come to terms with that. That’s actually really beautiful. And I actually –  recently –  last season, because, when this episode shows, that would have been last season.  I did an episode on the ways our loved ones let us know they’re around, when they’ve past.  And appearing in our dreams is very, very common.  Very common. And the reason for that is, because, our consciousness doesn’t get in the road.

Exactly. You know when you’re sleeping that’s when you’re the most vulnerable.  You’re the most open.  One of –  A colleague of mine in the paranormal community, she’s actually –  when she goes to these location….  Her name is Miranda from Ghost Biker Explorations, when she goes to these locations she’ll actually sleep.  When she goes into the prison, she’ll find a place.  A cell or something, and she’ll sleep for a couple hours.  Because, she can go into that vulnerable state and see if she can get some type of feedback, from any of the paranormal entities that are there. So to your point, you’re absolutely right. Going into a sleep state or a dream state, is that place where you’re the most open and you’re the most receptive to getting signs from them. From relatives, or other paranormal entities that want to communicate with you.

That’s actually quite scary that she does that. She’s very…

Sometimes it scares me.  Sometimes it scares me on her behalf. But, she’s very cautious.  And, she’s she’s actually one like I said, in the paranormal community that we’ve had the opportunity to do several collaborations with.  And she’s, she has a style similar to our own.  Where that, she’s in it for the historical research as well as getting pure paranormal evidence. So for us to be able to collaborate with her has been just a really big blessing for us, because, we do get to – you know, interact with others in the community. So to have her come on some investigations with us, and then us go on some investigation with her, has been a really big blessing. So, but yes, she’ll go into a location and sleep for a couple hours to, to see what what happens.

That brings me to another point. Do you guys use any form of protection when you go into these places? Or, do you just go in cold?

No. We do have a prayer of protection that we say both before and after when we leave the investigation. And then when we’re in these locations you know we’ll, we’ll make it pretty clear that unless we give permission –  nothing in that building or that location is to touch us, or or manipulate us in any way. Now for example, if I walk into a room and I say if you’re here can you touch my pant leg? Or, my younger sister has long hair, if you, if you play with Michelle’s hair? Or something like that, that’s different. But, you know, there have been some instances where we’ll go in and say you’re not allowed to touch us.  You’re not allowed to go home with us. And we really do set those boundaries. And I think for us it works, because, we’re not going into look for negative. You know there are instances where we’ll go into a location, and we’ll feel it.  And we’ll back out of that room, or we’ll approach it in some different way.  But for us our investigations are very pure, if you will.  We go in with what we think is the right intentions. And, that is to tell the story of the entities that we’re trying to communicate with.

We’re not threatening them. We’re not going to try to provoke them. Or go in with a lot of bravado and try to to chest thump and say, you know, if you’re here hit me!  Or, if you’re here, throw a chair.  That’s really not what we’re gonna do. You know we –  if you’ll listen and watch any of our episodes, you’ll hear that we always say, “We want to tell your story.”  And that is for us legitimately true. We want to tell the story of what happened and what essentially, their side of the story is. And I’ll give you an example of what I mean by that. There is a location in central Florida. It’s called The Ma Barker house. And this is the site of the nineteen-thirty-five shootout between Ma Barker and her son Fred. They were holed up in a house and they engaged the FBI in a gunfight in nineteen-thirty-five. So they were in this house, it was their hideout. The FBI surrounded the house on January fifteenth, nineteen-thirty-five.  And a four-hour gun battle ensued and Ma and Fred, who were both members of the Barker Karpis gang. They were killed by the FBI.

So, the house has been maintained in the family. Not the Barker family, because, they had rented the house.  But, the people that they rented from –  that family maintain the house, as it was in nineteen-thirty-five. So if you go into the house now, you’ll still see bullet holes. The furniture has bullet holes. You know there’s there’s blankets that you can see where the bullets have passed through. So that house is what I would call pristine, in the fact that it still has all of the essence that it had from nineteen-thirty-five. So we were permitted to go in as the first paranormal investigation team, to actually investigate this location. And we did this two years ago. So, we were actually the first paranormal team given permission to do that. And we went in on the night of the anniversary of the shoot out. So we felt that, that was probably any time going to give us the best energy, if we could get it.

And we had a spirit box.  And, for those in your audience that don’t know what that is. It’s, it’s basically an AMF ham radio that’s been modified to sweep very quickly through frequencies. So when you turn it on and you start start sweeping basically, you’ll hear it [making representative noises], as it goes from one frequency to the next. And the idea is, that spirits can can speak through that frequency.  So theoretically you should not have a full phrase being said, because, it’s going through frequency so fast. So when you do have a phrase being said, it is an indication to us that, that’s paranormal.

So we were actually sitting there doing – it was just my sister and I and we’re doing an EVP session in the room where Ma and Fred were killed. And my question was, what happened in this room? And the spirit box –  through the spirit box, it said, “Someone murdered us.” And I said, “Fred are you here?” And we got the name Fred. And, then another voice that said, “That was Kate.” And Kate was Ma Barker’s given name. So to us, to me, that is saying they murdered us in this room. They being the FBI. So for me that is their story. That is what Ma and Fred would want to convey, if they had the opportunity to tell their story.  And that’s what I conveyed in my video. That this is what they believe that they were killed. They were murdered by the FBI. And so for us when I say we’re trying to tell your story. That’s what I’m talking about, you know those those type of examples are what I’m talking about. And that’s what we go in with the mindset to the investigation. We go in with the mindset of we’re legitimately trying to tell your story.

Right. And I remember the story of Ma Baker. That was made into a song wasn’t it? I remember –  I remember this song anyway.  It came out I think. in the seventies? Maybe?

Probably, yes Ma’am.  There’s been songs, there’ve been movies about it.  And don’t get me wrong, I mean they were bad people. The Barker-Karpis gang, you know they, they, they were murderers.  They robbed, they kidnapped, so they were probably the worst of the worst of the nineteen-twenty, nineteen-thirty era gangsters. So did they get what they deserved? Probably, but, for me their story was, that they were murdered by the FBI.  And you know again, that that to us was a very, very compelling piece of evidence.  When we did that investigation.

That was a very very interesting –  and you have caught some very interesting EVP.  And I recall listening to one when I was watching one of your videos at night.  I should have written in the name of the episode down. But I can’t remember which it was I think it was. I think it was –  a hotel that had been turned into a rest home. And, you got this long EVP saying, “They just want to talk to us. “

Yes. So that was in Prospect Place Mansion and that’s in Trinway, Ohio. And it was actually a stop on the underground railroad during, during the Civil War. So they had housed a lot of slaves in that house. They were trying to move from the south to the north. And it was it was a very interesting EVP that we captured. We were…. there were five of us that night on the investigation and this was in an upstairs bedroom. And we had again, we left a stationary night vision video camera, then an audio recorder in that room. and two of us were downstairs in the floor just underneath that, but then three of us were in the basement. So two floors down.

So there was nobody in the area of the voice recorder, when this was captured. And during the night during that investigation, you know one of the common questions that we asked is you know, we want to talk to you. Can you talk to us? Can you tell us your story? Give us a sign or something like that? So when I was listening to the audio, going through our audio review, we captured the EVP that says,” They’re here to talk to us.” And again, that was very compelling, because, again it’s a full phrase.  It’s intelligent, which makes it seem like they acknowledge and understand that we’re there to talk to them. And that was a very cool EVP that we captured.  I would consider probably one of our best EVPs, in the sense that it is a phrase, and it is intelligent.

Probably the next two on my list would be from The Exchange Hotel.  And that’s in Gordonsville, Virginia. And that was a hotel that was transformed into a civil war hospital during the Civil War.  And it cared for the doctors there.  Cared for both union and confederate soldiers. But they have over seven hundred verified deaths that happened in that hospital, because, it was such an extensive area of fighting. So you know, you go back to the research and find out the deaths of that hotel. But anyway so after it was a hospital it was converted back into a hotel so the rooms are very spacious very big and they have the the hotel now is it’s set up. They have it to look like the hotel.  

So half of it, the rooms are set up to look like a hotel. The other half you have it set up to look like a Civil War hospital, with the gurneys and the beds and all that. So we had a voice recorder in one of the rooms that was set up to look like a hotel. And the voice recorder was sitting on the bed and during the night we captured two very good EVP. One was a child and the child said “Hi. This is my bed.”, which again is an interesting to us because it shows intelligence. I think he was talking to the voice recorder saying hi this is my bed and you know again it’s compelling because I can very quickly rule out that there was no children anywhere in the vicinity of that house. There’s no way that we should have captured a child’s voice.

 A couple hours later on the same voice recorder there’s a man’s voice that comes on and says, “I don’t know. I’ll be back at four – thirty.”  And, through the cadence you can tell it’s an elderly gentleman.  And there again, no men anywhere on that property. So again very compelling, compelling evidence to us, because, we don’t have any men in the group. So it was just a very cool night for us and in return, in regards to that evidence. And, I would consider again those two probably some of our best EVPs.

Oh wow, that’s pretty awesome. So, you’ve caught some really excellent EVP. So, what other evidence has your team caught or what other investigations stand out for you? What is your favorite investigation that you’ve ever done?

I’d say in terms of evidence, the best investigation that I can that I think we’ve done was at The Old Gilchrist County Jail and that’s in Trenton Florida, which is about 45 minutes west of Gainesville Florida.  And it’s a, it’s a jail that is so nondescript.  It’s in the middle of what I would call, not the greatest neighborhood. In fact, when we went there the owner told us you know, if you have a license to carry a handgun, I would carry a handgun with you and keep it with you at all times when you go into the location. And so, this was actually an investigation that I was fortunate enough to do with Miranda Young from Ghost biker explorations. And she and I were the only two people in the property, –  on the property that night. So two female investigators. We both carry, so we both had our side arms with us, and we went into that investigation.

So just to backtrack a little bit the jail was built in nineteen-twenty-eight. It was an operation till nineteen-sixty-eight. And it’s a very small jail it’s two stories.  It only has eight cells, because, the county is kind of small it only had eight cells but some of these cells would hold up to eight to ten people. So when the jailer would go home at night, basically he would just turn the lights off lock the door and go.  And whatever who’s ever alive when he comes back the next day, you know, there you go. So they were there several confirmed deaths that happen in the jail and after the jail closed in nineteen-sixty-eight it sat vacant for for about a decade.

And during that time there were known drug deals that went down in that jail. And there was a guy that was killed in a drug deal gone bad in two-thousand and nine, and they called him Mr. Black. So when we went into this location to do the investigation we set up pretty much every piece of equipment that we had. So, from stationary night vision video cameras, to voice recorders. we had laser grids. We have what’s called a REM pod. And for those in the audience that don’t know it’s basically a device that measures electromagnetic energy around it. So, if you were to set it next to say a microwave that was on it would alert that there was electromagnetic energy. But, in this location there’s absolutely no power. So if we were to set this in the middle of the room and it goes off, something is causing that. And when we know that we don’t have any equipment with us that sets it off, we have to start looking at the paranormal at that point.

So we set up REM pods we set up K2 meters. You know we had several other pieces of hand-held equipment that we used that night. And I would say that this investigation is stands out in my mind, because, it was such a great example of an investigation where every piece of equipment that we had, was validating every other piece of equipment. And by that I mean you know we had our EVPs that we captured were validating the words that we were getting on what we call the spirit box. And the spirit box was validating things that we were getting on what we call an Ovulus. And that’s a device that essentially you set in the room. And it’s been trance –  it’s been modified to say words. So the words that were coming up on the Ovulus was validating the responses that we were getting on the REM pod when we’re asking questions. So, it was a very pure investigation in the fact that we were getting so much evidence. So we –  like you said, we were getting hits on the REM pod we were getting hits on our K2 meters. We have an SLS camera. And what that is it’s a, it’s a camera that it is setup, set up to an iPad. And basically when you sweep it around a room, it will display anything that it’s thinks as human as a stick figure on the screen.

So Marianne, if I were to point it at you. You would show up as a stick figure on the camera, or on the on the display. So when we panned it around a room and we know that nobody’s there, when it displays a stick figure we can start to think maybe that this is paranormal. So we had the SLS camera that was was giving us those hits.  We had shadows that we were visibly seeing, walking through our laser grids. And, so to me that was probably the one that stands out the most –  in terms of evidence.  For the one that probably has the best history, I would say our investigation at the Ma Barker house, as well as Fort Mifflin in – which is a revolutionary war fort in Pennsylvania. Those were some some great investigations for us.

That’s awesome. So you’ve got your audio evidence.  You’ve got your electronics equipment verifying what you’ve seen. Now in terms of photographic evidence have you ever been able to get photographic evidence of anything?

Yes, ma’am and we had this on our web site. It’s very hard to kind of obviously translate into a video but we had the f –  the picture on the website.  And my sisters and I, were actually travelling to San Antonio Texas for a family reunion and we stayed at the Mango Hotel which is directly across the street from the Alamo. And, it has a lot of reports of paranormal activity. So we’re staying there and during the night, this is about two-thirty. We decided we’re going to do an impromptu investigation of the Mango hotel, the lobbies and everything. So we walk down into into the lobby and we went up to the second floor and there’s it’s a basically a rotunda. And if you if you look across it’s open but you look across and there was a mirror hanging on the hallway.

So we just snapping pictures left and right, you know, left and right – snapping, snapping, snapping. And we probably took in the course of snapping, probably took about 30 pictures of this mirror, or the vicinity of the mirror –  where the mirror was in the picture. And we’re going through those pictures, and in one of them there’s a woman a figure in the mirror. And, you can see her. It’s very distinct to us when we looked at it. It’s a profile you see a blue hair bow.  You see ruffled a ruffled collar and a blue dress. And she’s kind of got this smirk on her face. When we showed it to the hotel manager the next morning, he said it was the best picture of paranormal evidence, that they’ve captured in the hotel. And he actually asked us to send it to him which we did and that mirror was hanging outside of the room where a woman committed suicide. And I believe in the nineteen-twenties, she committed suicide in the bathtub. And so to us that was a very very compelling piece of evidence and it is on our web site if your viewers would like to take a look at that.

And speaking of websites, what’s your website address? So listeners can go and have a look for themselves.

It’s www dot soul sisters paranormal dot com. We’re also on YouTube under Soul Sisters paranormal as well as Facebook under Soul Sisters paranormal.

Do you have an Instagram feed and a Twitter feed?

Not Twitter. I do have an Instagram feed. I really am trying to figure all of that out. Instagram and I are, are – we’re not the best of friends right now. So I’m trying to figure out Instagram. It’s on there under Soul Sister Paranormal. You should be able to find us if you’re looking for it on Instagram. But, I’m not as prolific on that as I am on FaceBook.

It takes a bit of a learning curve doesn’t it?  I still struggle with my Instagram for the, for the podcast. It’s a struggle. OK. So in terms of the instrumentations that you use, one of them and I don’t know the technical name for it.  Creates this light grid that you – a light grid that you, you know? With all the dots?

Yes ma’am. The laser grid.

That’s it, I knew it was a simple term. So in a couple, in one of your videos in particular on YouTube, you caught a very, very compelling piece of evidence. Could you tell us about that one please?

Yes, ma’am. We were at Fort Mifflin. Again that’s in Philadelphia, ah Pennsylvania.  And that area is just so immersed in history. So Fort Mifflin was a fort during the Revolutionary War.  George Washington asked a small contingent of soldiers to hold to the extremities, so he could get his soldiers out of the area.  His entire army out of the area. So this small contingent of soldiers essentially held off an entire British bombardment for, I think, up to four days. And so George Washington could get his army across and out of the area. So that –  there’s so much history.  Again, you can see the bullet holes and all of that.

But what is really unique about that fort is they have what’s called casemates, and that’s where they stored all of the ammunition and they’re underground. So, when you go into the fort there’s just really big mounds of dirt, and they have the doorway and you go in and then you go into these mounds. So what that does is it keeps it cool. And it also, really prevents a lot of noise pollution from getting in. So when we go through the evidence and we hear some of the EVPs that we captured there, again you can quickly rule out some environmental factors.  Because, it’s just so hard for noise to just penetrate under the ground. So they have a casemate there is called Casemate eleven, and this case made was actually found several years ago. They didn’t know it existed. It was found several years ago, when a lawn maintenance guy was riding his lawnmower over and it sunk and they found they dug it. They – when they were digging the lawnmower out they’re like OK what is this? And they found it’s a whole another casemate.

And they have discovered through records and research that, that case mate was used as a solitary confinement cell during the Revolutionary War, and the Civil War. So there was a there’s an actual documented case of a gentleman, his name was William Howell. And he was considered a traitor so they put him in here in this casemate. They held him in solitary confinement about seven, again about seven feet under the ground and they executed him at the fort.

So when we went in there there’s only one doorway in, and you kind of have to kind of sink down to go into it.  And then you go into another little subterranean room and that’s where they held him. So when we went in there through again, through our research we figured out that he was there. And so we wanted to do – we wanted to take some trigger items.  And trigger items are those items that we feel that we can put in an area, and maybe get a response because of that. So, we again decided this guy was in a solitary confinement cell. So we took a piece of bread. We took some water.  And we took a cigarette. Just thinking that those items could entice him to maybe, to speak to us during the night.  So myself and my, and my other investigator Cara, we went down into that that room during the night.  And I said, “You know, if you’re here, can you give us a sign that you’re here? Did you see the water that we left you?” And both of us heard a male voice saying, “Yes. Thank you.” And so with that cat –  we captured that on our voice recorders. And that, to me, was very compelling.

So in that when we left, we left a stationary night vision video camera, as well as a laser grid in that, in that room. And the idea being, that if something crosses in front of the laser grid the beams will be cut and we’ll be able to see it as a shadow. It was, it was stationed right in the door. And, so you could tell it was – the laser grid was a little bit in front of the camera. So if something cut the beams obviously you would have to cut the camera – you’d have to go in front of a camera as well i.e. step over it. None of that happened. But what we did have –  what happened during the night, was something cut in front of the laser beams.  And by my estimation the door in there’s probably about five and a half to six feet tall. So this, this was about the same height as that door. So it had to have been about five and a half to six feet tall. And it is just a very, very compelling piece of evidence. Because, you can see that nothing is walking in front of that grid and nothing is walking in front of that camera. So that is as far as visual evidence. That’s probably one of the best pieces of visual evidence that we capture during our investigation

And it’s really, really awesome.  You can actually see that it’s a figure, a shape. It’s the shape of a figure.

Yes, Ma’am.

It looks tall, slender to me.  And it moves very, very quickly. Very compelling evidence, I would’ve been absolutely wrapt to get something like that.

Yes, Ma’am. Yeah. And when you capture those, you know, it is. For us –  I mean, obviously once we’re done with the investigation, we collect all of that that audio and visual footage that we captured.  And, we have to go through and sit through all of that. So it is a very tedious process, to go through all that. And I’d say it probably takes us about two months, from investigation to actual releasing of the video. Because, we have to go through all of that. But when you’re sitting there and you’re watching just nothing happened for five, six, seven hours and then you get the one shot it’s like Yes! This is worth it! This is why we’re doing this, because, now we’ve captured –  and, we can link that up with the EVP that we captured. You know we don’t only have visual evidence. We have audio evidence to go with that visual evidence.  And, and to us, that just makes it so much compelling.

Oh absolutely. Now, I know that some of my listeners are going to want to know this, because, it’s the humans need to be scared. What is the scariest investigation you guys have done? Would –  that caused you guys to feel really creeped out, or really uncomfortable or, or, physically scared?

I, I would say probably the prisons that we’ve investigated.  And I would say Moundsville, West Virginia and the Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary in Tennessee.  As well as the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. And, it’s not so much that you’re scared because when we go in it’s, it’s, it’s kind of like the investigation mindset kind of kicks in, and it’s more about the research. But, when when you’re standing there in like the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and you know that every person on the property is standing here in this one little group talking.  And, you hear a scream from down the hallway, that’s extremely startling.  When you’re in Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary and two of us are standing there in a stairwell. And, you hear footsteps running up that stairwell at you. And, you know that nobody else is there. That’s, that’s –  it’s startling.

And so that I would say that is probably those areas. And that’s really for us to be expected, because, of what happened in the the emotions that are still, even within the walls of prisons and insane asylums. You know, by their very nature just going in even if you’re not looking for paranormal. Just going in and just feeling or trying to put yourself in the mindset of what it was like to live there, or be housed there. Or, to be in prison there and try to survive there.  You know, Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary before it closed, was a maximum security prison. And you know there were daily killings.  There was –  there is one example of –  There was a gentleman in the cafeteria, and while everybody’s eating dinner, another gang –  some gang members jumped him and basically just disemboweled him.  And decapitated him there in the cafeteria, while people are eating dinner.  And they’re eating dinner, while this was going on. And so –  I know it’s, it’s, it’s quite intense.  But, that is the type of thing that you think about. That you’re standing in that room, and you’re like, these atrocities happened in this room.

Even absent paranormal, just what those walls have seen, that in prison.  And, like I said I’ve seen asylums and even forts to some example, or even the lighthouse and all of that. It’s just the history that is just really embedded in the walls of these locations. It really does –  that just kind of speak for itself. But yeah,  to be standing in some place like Brushy Mountain and to hear a door slam. Or you know in another great example is we were all in here in the gymnasium of Brushy Mountain. And again, this happened to be a collaboration with ghost biker. And we had a Rem pod set up in the middle of the gymnasium, along with several other pieces of equipment that either had a light on them, or glowed. So for example we had our glow ball. And the room is extremely dark. So the Rem pod – There’s two red lights on top of the Rem pod, and are we had a glow ball standing there.  

And, we’re all we’re there in the middle.  All these electronics are in the middle and we we’re in a semicircle around it.  And all of a sudden, a shadow just darts in front of the Rem pod and it blocks out the light, and we all see it. And, Miranda from Ghost Biker explorations was holding an SLS camera and at the same time the shadow crosses. She got a hit on the SS camera and, and this is in my video for the –  if you watch Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary the return. And so you see this was all caught again, caught on camera. So you see the SS camera have a hit and then you see the shadow run back again. So to capture that on film –  all of us in the moment saw the shadow run to the left, and then to capture on film the shadow running back to the right.  To the point where it blocks off the lights of the REM pod –  is just it’s, is so compelling.

And that’s a startling example I mean when we were there we saw that it’s like I mean I actually said an expletive on camera then, because, that that’s how startling that was.  Because, you don’t….  When you go into these locations, yes you’re hoping to see an apparition.  Yes, you’re hoping to see a shadow, or have something slam in your face. Or, hear footsteps. But a majority of the time you’re in these locations sitting in silence, essentially talking to yourself.

So you know the media and television shows have really sensationalized this to the fact that where a lot of people that are watching these, think that it’s intense from the moment you walk in, to the moment you walk out.  And that’s 30 minutes. So you’ve got just a thirty-minute investigation, where everything is intense.  Your hairs standing on end.  You’re running out screaming and then, there’s a fifteen-minute evidence review and then a fifteen-minute evidence reveal. And that whole investigation is wrapped up in a nice package, in an hour. And that’s not how that happens.

I mean, we’ll be sitting in a location for like I said ten, twelve, fifteen hours.  And there’s been times where I’ll, I’ll leave dejected. It’s like I wouldn’t catch anything. You know we’ll just chalk it up to not our night. It was a great place to stay, awesome history, but we didn’t catch anything.  And then we go back to the evidence review and we’ll be catching EVPs all night.  So that, you know, when when you ask if, what is the most scary, or something like that? To answer your question, in a very long winded way.  I would say the prisons and the insane asylums. But you know? It’s really those one off situations, where you hear a scream, and hear a doorknob or a door slam, or something like that –  that really, really startles you. But in the moment, it’s really about getting in and actually doing a cool research on those occasions.

Of course, and have you ever had examples of spirit using their sense of humor? I remember doing an investigation with my team one time.  And it was a very old hotel that was sited on land battles.  Maori land battles in New Zealand.  And, I was standing –  standing in the doorway of a particular room and all of a sudden this, this spirit appeared right beside me. Tall, thin guy. Gave me a hell of a fright and I went [squeals]. Because, I wasn’t expecting that. And then on the EVP we get – as he appears, he says, ”Boo”

Oh. That’s ok cute!

Yeah. That was really.

[Boo EVP plays:

Spirit: Boo!

Marianne: Oh there was just somebody standing there gave me a start!

Person 1: You gave me a start.

Marianne: Sorry.]

That’s cute. And I love those examples like that, because, you know a lot of people when they think of paranormal investigations, you know, they think of demonic.  They think of scary.  They think of the dark.  They think of – and that’s really not how it is. Its….  Yeah. If you go into someplace like a prison or an insane asylum. Yes, I think you’re going to find those entities that are more –  that are gruff.  That are that are darker. That are on the edge of –  on the edge of negative, its because, they weren’t happy places in life. But, if you go to some of these locations where there are children, or something like that.  You do have the opportunity to actually have some fun and to really see that playful side.  

And so, for the example that I’ll give you, this was at the, back at the Exchange Hotel.  And so before it was a Civil War hospital it was a hotel. And so these –  because, it was a very big train junction there in Gainesville Virginia. So the trains would come in from the north and the south.  And you know you when you’re waiting for an East West Exchange you sometimes had to stay overnight. So this was a very grand hotel.  It had a large veranda. So families would come and they would stay there. And so there’re reports of a young child in the hotel named Jeremiah, who really likes to interact with paranormal investigators. So we’re on –  myself and another investigator Kim we’re on the second floor and we were we’re on either end of the hallway. So she was down the hall for me. Probably by about, I’d say nine or ten feet. So we were both sitting on the floor.  And I had a glow in the dark ball. And, we each had a K2 meter in front of us. So, I would say,” Jeremiah if you want me to roll the ball down to Kim, light up my K2 meter.”  And my K2 meter would light up. So I’d roll the ball down to Kim. And so Kim would say, “You know Jeremiah, if you want me to roll it back to Christi light up my K2 meter.”  The k 2 meter would light up. So we did this for about 20 minutes, just back and forth.

And to me that that’s a very cool playful side. And it also validates the reports of a child, because, it’s a very childlike behavior.  It’s a very childlike mannerism, of rolling a ball back and forth.  And it was just a very cool experience, we had a lot of fun with that. And you know so, so there are there are times when it’s, it’s – there is some jovial interaction.

We’re at the St. Augustine lighthouse, and we were just talking. We were in the keeper’s cottage. And one of the reports are that you’ll smell cigarette smoke, because, one of the keepers really liked to smoke. That was his nightly pleasure, was smoking a cigar. And so, we’re just kind of standing there talking.  And one of us said something to the effect of, “Yeah sure would be great, if we could get the smell of cigar smoke.” And about four or five seconds later all of us are like, well there it is. There’s the smell of cigar smoke.  So it really does show that, that intelligence level that, you know, yes they are aware of us. You do have those intelligent beings that are aware that, that you’re there. That you’re actually trying to communicate with them. So I would say that those couple of examples, and there are others, but those are the couple of examples of, of I’d say of a more jovial investigation.  

That’s  really awesome. And of course, you have your intelligent hauntings, which are the ones we’ve been talking about.  And, you also have residual, which are sort of like a tape recorder playing on loop – more, or less.  Have you come across many residual?

Absolutely. And I’ll go back to the Ma Barker house for this example. We as, as I said before.  We did the investigation of the Ma Barker house.  And it was just my sister and I.  And we had set up again some, some of that stationary equipment. And, then after our investigation we left that stationary equipment to run through the night. And so like I said, we had set it up the evening of the morning, of the anniversary of –  of the shoot out. So the shoot out happened at about six a.m. on the fifteenth. So we set up our equipment the night of the fourteenth.  January fourteenth.  And it ran from about nine a.m. until the morning of the fifteenth so it encompassed the area, ah, it encompassed the time of the actual shoot out of the anniversary.

So at around –  when I was listening to the audio, when I was going back through at about six o’clock in the morning –  which is when the shoot out would have occurred, eighty-three years prior.  We get –  we get two EVPS.  The first one is what I believe is a female voice saying “Freddie.” The next one says “Yeah Ma?”. And the first voice again says “Get ready.” And so for me that was a residual communication. It’s, it’s that blip in time that –  like you said, a record that is just really playing on loop.  And if you’re if you’re fortunate enough to hear it, you’ll be able to capture that and it will probably happen at that same time. You know, on that anniversary date. If you’re fortunate enough to catch it. So I would say that that is a very good example of a residual that, that it’s there it’s going to happen. That’s how it went down. You know excuse me the night of the shootout or the morning of the shootout. So, yes. We’ve captured several residual haunting, or ah EVPs like that.  For us, a majority of what we capture is intelligent, I believe. But we do have several examples of residual confusion for sure.

Have you ever caught any animal sounds? Any animal sounds in your recordings?

We have had a couple of dogs that we really can’t explain. And we had one at the Lizzie Borden house. I haven’t released that video yet. That’s the next one I’m working on. But again that’s hard for us, because, as much as we try to rule it out we just can’t be one-hundred-percent sure that that’s not something, that’s taking place in the quote. Unquote, real world. So yeah. We’ve.,we’ve had a couple of examples of that but, you know, it’s, its – we’ve had such compelling evidence of other sounds or voices, that very rarely unless it’s it’s pretty substantial do we normally see that.

Right of course. So you always – and I guess you always have other stuff that backs up that as well, when you do choose to release it, yeah. I understand that.

Right. And, and I’m sorry.  When we do the evidence review, you know, when we do the evidence review –  it’s to us, it’s kind of as meticulous, as are our research and our setup. You know when we –  a majority of the time, because, of my time schedule I’m the one that’s listening to most of the audio. My sister’s help when they can, but when we find something that we can’t explain –  the first thing that we do when we have what we call an EVP hit.  We will actually go back and figure out where everybody was at that location, at that time. So, we all have body cameras that we wear during the investigation. So, we all have time stamps of where we were.  So we will quickly rule out that it’s any of us, and then we will cut it.  We’ll clip that, that clip and we’ll send it to every other member of the group. We won’t tell the others what we think it says. We’ll say, you know, we’ll label it like EVP one or EVP two.  

And we’ll send it out and say –  What do you think is, is being said here?  And we’ll, we all try to get a consensus of what we say.  Sometimes if all of us can’t hear it, then we throw it out and we say OK.  Because, we try to put ourselves in the mindset of the audience.  And say, you know if, if you can’t –  if this isn’t something that everybody can understand.  Or a majority of our audience can understand, then we’re not going to put that forth as pure paranormal evidence, or compelling evidence that we can’t explain. So that that if we have a very rigorous test for what actually gets put out there as EVPs and video evidence and such. So that’s kind of how we go through that.

That’s really awesome that you’re quite meticulous about, about what you put out.  And I think that’s really important too. Because, so many –  so much of the stuff that I’ve seen actually makes me cringe. Because, it’s obvious that people are putting stuff out that could easily be debunked, simply because they want to put something, you know?  They want the things that – There’s I guess natural human bias that you want to perhaps, hear something that’s actually not there. How do you feel that doing these investigations?  Do you feel, that doing these investigations has altered your paradigms at all?

I think for some it really has. We – like I say, we went into this with the mindset of research. And really trying to delve into why these paranormal occurrences are being documented?  Why are they happening at these locations?  And to back that up with the historical research that we do. And it really to me, it has solidified that the fact that there is something after this.  You know?  I’ll say right up front I’m a Christian.  I believe that there is a heaven.  I believe that there is something after this, and it really has solidified that for me. I don’t think that everybody every soul passes immediately upon death. I think there are reasons why souls are held back.  Why – that we are able to speak to certain entities.  And why we’re not seeing ghosts every time we turn around. I do believe that like my Nana, my Granddaddy, you know, I think that Granddaddy stayed. I think he was here and he was waiting for Nana. That was his quote unquote unfinished business.

So I do think that there are instances where entities are staying and before they ascend. Or they may never because of certain, you know, like I said I think there are several reasons why.  So I think for me, these investigations have really solidified in my mind that there is an afterlife.  That there is something next after this.  And we have the ability, after this to, to be intelligent.  To know that there are, that there are investigators that are out there trying to get answers.  That are trying to search. So for me, it brings a lot of peace. It really does.  To know that there is something after this, and to really kind of confirm that.  

And I guess there’s also for you, putting these videos out, there’s the satisfaction of knowing that in some respects you’re helping people? Entertaining as well, but you also are helping people. You’re helping people to learn that there is actually more.  A lot of people don’t have these sort of beliefs.  They don’t have anything that they can hold on to, that gives them comfort in these uncertain times.

And, you’re absolutely right. You know, if we can can show, listen there is something after this. You do continue on.  There is something past this realm then, that’s a pretty cool feeling. That, if we can bring some peace to somebody that’s, that’s fantastic. You know, we don’t put these videos out in order to try to convince anybody of paranormal.  Or, to convince anybody that there’s an afterlife. What we’re attempting to do, is put forth a very true investigation based on the history that we’ve, we’ve uncovered.  A very true investigation of going in and actually asking questions. And to the extent that we can trying to find answers.

If, if somebody doesn’t believe it, or somebody wants to say hey I think I can debunk this.  Then that’s great! And we’re willing to absolutely have that dialogue. But you know I’m again, I’m not trying to convince anybody to change their belief structure. Or try to change their idea of the next realm, or paradigm. That’s not what we’re attempting to do. What I –  like I said what I’m attempting to do, is say at this moment in time there were four females in this location. We captured a male voice and I can’t explain that.  Or, you know we –  we’re standing here and this door slams and you catch it on camera. And I, and that’s something that I can’t explain.  It’s very compelling evidence of something manipulating this. So you know, for me not so much trying to change people’s minds.  But, if that helps to reinforce the belief of the paranormal then sure. I’m glad that we can do that for you. But, it’s not trying to say –  ‘cause, I’ve had a lot of interviewers ask me –  you know, you know are you trying to convince people. That, that’s really not what we’re trying to do.  We’ll again, just put forth historical facts about some very cool locations and backing that up with evidence that I can’t explain. That’s essentially what I do.

I didn’t get the impression at all, watching your videos that you were. My impression was, that you were just presenting what you saw.  What you captured.  And, leaving it up to the person watching, to decide for themselves. That’s the impression that I got. So I really applaud the way you guys do that. I think that’s really good. You don’t sensationalize. You don’t speculate. You just proceed.

Well thank you, and I appreciate that and I’m glad that it shows. And for us there really isn’t a need to sensationalize. I feel that the evidence that we’re putting out there really does speak for itself. I – I don’t have to sensationalize a male voice saying” I don’t know. I’ll be back at four-thirty. “I can tell you that that is what happened and there were no males in the area. I know that the paranormal shows.  The popular media shows that are out there. They have to sensationalize, to some extent, to get the audience base.  And I get that. I do think that the paranormal shows have done a great service to the paranormal community, because, it has gotten –  it has brought it more into the mainstream, if you will.  But then, it also does a disservice to us that are out there trying to legitimately do a paranormal investigation. Because, you do have those people in the, quote, unquote, normal society that see a parallel investigation as a thirty-minute deal where followed by fifteen-minutes of evidence review and then fifteen-minutes of reveal. And you know it’s just it’s just not like that. So when we have guests that come with us on some of our investigations, they’re like you know we’re just sitting here what’s, what’s supposed to happen? I said well nothing that’s, that’s how most of these investigations are going to go.  It’s sort of like fishing you’ve got to wait you know.

Yeah and you may leave here without having any personal experiences. I mean there have been some locations where we haven’t had any personal experiences when we go into these locations. And like I said befor,e I’ll leave saying you know it was a great night. It was fun to be in this, this fort, or this prison. Or, this gangster house, but it just wasn’t our night. But then you start going back to the evidence and you start reviewing and listening and really sit down and go through this large amount of evidence and you’ll start you’ll start hearing things.  You’ll start capturing things. You know, I like to say that that everybody hears but, not a lot of people listen. And if you go into these locations and you actually put yourself there and you listen, you will eventually start to hear. And that to me is, is really the cool factor of doing some of this.

It’s your intent you go in with as well, isn’t it?

Oh, absolutely!

I have a Facebook group called Walking the Shadowlands, which actually is the reason I started the podcast.  Because, members asked me to.  And one thing I consistently say to my members, is:  Intent is everything!  And your intent is the energy you put out, and that’s what you get in return.

And you’re absolutely right. And you know I’m not going to disparage those groups that that want to go in with bravado. That want to go in and say, we’re going to go stir up the dead. If that’s if that’s how you want to conduct your investigations, that’s fine. And you know, if you have a great substantial YouTube following base because of it. And that’s what they want to watch. Fantastic. But you know for us, that is, that is not what we’re trying to do, one hundred percent. We’re like you we we go in with the intention of legitimately trying to tell a story.

And, if we can expose the location and have, have it more into the mainstream where people see these locations and say hey I may want to visit there. or I want to know more about this and it can preserve those locations, that’s really our main goal. And if, if people don’t like what we do.  Or they think that it’s not fast enough or sensational enough for them, they can find another YouTube channel –  where somebody is doing something that’s more sensationalized, if you will. But for us it’s all about finding pure paranormal evidence.  Or evidence that I can’t explain and really connecting it, with the location of the history.  

Right, and I think that’s actually really awesome. Now, a couple of questions that I remembered I was going to ask you earlier. One is –  Have you guys ever heard disembodied voices as opposed to just EVP?

Oh absolutely. And that that actually happens with some frequency for us. Again, I think –  not that I’m saying that, that all female teams are, are better.  But I think, because, females in my mind, are a little bit more empathic.  Just by their nature of being female and not going in with, with again that bravado.  Or looking for anything negative. I think when we go in we’re actually in the mindset of listening, at that point – once you cross that threshold. And yes.  We’ve heard disembodied voices in the moment. You know one of the examples I’ll go back to, is the old Gilchrist County jail.  If you watch that episode, during our walk through the date –  the day tour that we did, Miranda’s holding her camera and we’re just kind of talking amongst ourselves.  And she pans the camera. And you hear a voice behind her saying “Hey! Come back!”  And we heard that in the moment. And so we were fortunate enough to capture it on our camera.

Excuse me. And so yeah, there’s been several instances where we’re standing there and you hear it behind you.  Or you hear a voice beside you. We were at Brushy Mountain State Penitentiary. And again this just happened to be the collaboration with Miranda from Ghost biker. And we were walking through a corridor and every piece of audio equipment that we had going, heard this slap on the wall.  Like somebody had just taken their hand and whacked the wall really hard. And Miranda’s camera guy, Josh turned around and said,” Did y’all hear that?” And we’re like yeah. And at that moment a voice said,” I warned you.” And so, that that was pretty cool. One of us heard that in the moment, but it was able to be picked up on all of the audio.

So it’s not just disembodied voices. I mean we hear footsteps. I mean you –  there’s the West Virginia State Penitentiary. We were sitting there and you hear footsteps. I mean in the moment while you’re sitting there.  You hear footsteps running down the hallway to you – toward you.  To the point where you know something is going to materialize in front of you, in the dark. That’s how loud these footsteps were. So, door slamming, we hear those in the moment for sure. But yeah we’ve had numerous instances of disembodied voices in the moment.

That’s quite interesting when that happens.  And it’s especially good when you capture it on audio, as well, to back up.  So, just for listeners who don’t know the difference.  A disembodied voice is a voice, that’s audibly heard.  And perhaps, captured on, on recording as well.  An EVP is a voice that’s not audibly heard, but is captured on a digital device.  Or on the video. Or something like that. The other question that I had was, have any of your teams ever seen a full apparition?  Or a partial apparition?

We have.  Again, I’ll go back to the Gilchrist County Jail. Both of us were standing there and at the same time we thought we saw a shadow go by and then we’re because we’re standing outside of a doorway. And we thought we saw it running across the hallway.  And I said, “Did you see that?” And at that same moment it ran back to the left. And you can hear us talking about it on camera.  And we just so happen to have a video camera, or a night vision camera with a laser grid in that same spot. So as you’re hearing us talking you can see the shadow cross the laser grid. So we saw it the moment that it crossed the laser grid which was pretty cool. And I’ll have to say, I’ll go back to Brushy Mountain. Several of us saw a shadow figure there. Hales Barr dam which again is in Tennessee. We did see an apparition there, more of a mist. And that was captured on camera as well.

We’ve not really seen a full bodied apparition as, as I guess we would describe it. I think for me that would be my holy grail if we were able to see a full body apparition and actually know who it is. So for example, if I were to see a full body apparition and say OK that’s Abraham Lincoln. I see that. I know it. I think that’s the holy grail that I’m looking for. But I think obviously a lot of paranormal investigators would. But to answer your question yes we’ve seen shadow figures and we’ve seen what I would consider apparitions, but not any that I could say with certainty I know who that is.

And, that’s what makes it so exciting and compelling. And makes you want to return again, and again, and again to do this. It sort, of becomes an addiction doesn’t it? In a way.

You know, it really does.  Because, like I said it is kind of like fishing and the fact that you know you can be listening to ten hours of audio and all you hear is just static.  For ten hours.  And, then all of a sudden you get this voice coming through the static and it’s just that’s the reason why you do it. That’s the reason why you pick up the next voice recorder and listen for another ten hours to find that again. So it is. It is very addictive. And there’s been several places where we’ve been fortunate enough to go back multiple times.  And I really like those investigations because they build off the first investigation. So for example we were able to go back to Brushy Mountain Penitentiary, State Penitentiary a second time.

And so we took what we learned and what we heard and what we captured from that first investigation.  And really applied that to our second investigation.  It led our EVP session questions.  It led – the first investigation allowed us to know where to place cameras.  Or were not to place cameras.  Or things to do differently.  Or trigger items to use.  We’re very big on trigger items and that for us, I think is, is something that is very compelling and, and allows you to get some some different reactions. So like I said bringing different trigger items based on what we learned in that first investigation so being able to go back to a location a second time or multiple times is, it is very cool.

If you go to a location more than once, have you ever had an experience where spirit has remembered you?

Mm hmm. Yeah. And that was actually –  and that’s a great question. That was actually, I would say our best example was West Virginia State Penitentiary. And the first time we went like I said that was our very first investigation, very rudimentary. You know not not really a concept of where we wanted to go as a group.  So we just had very minimal equipment on that one. But what we captured allowed us to really tweak our second investigation.  And from the –  from the first investigation and the research and then subsequently the second investigation, we realized that there was a spirit in there. He’s a very well-known spirit to all paranormal investigators.  His name is Red Snyder and he was this – in life he was a very bad individual. He was a murderer. He was a leader of the Aryan Brotherhood.  Aryan Brotherhood while he was in the penitentiary. And so he, I mean, he would kill without a thought. But one of his main vices if you will is, he loved the soap opera of The Days of Our Lives. So during the day they would wheel a television set in front of his cell and he would watch Days of Our Lives.

So what we did on our second investigation is, I actually downloaded an episode of Days of Our Lives on my laptop.  And we put it in his cell and I let it run for an hour. We left the building entirely. I let it run for an hour and and because I wanted to connect with him.  To say OK, I know this is what you liked. I’m giving this to you.  Hopefully you’ll respond to us? And you know, I think he did.  Because, when we went back there later that evening and did an EVP session, we had a very cool K2 session. Back and forth. What’s very compelling about it is, a guest investigator Christopher, was holding an EVP –  ah, K2 meter. And Michelle, my investigator was holding another one.  And they were maybe within about a foot and a half of each other.  And there was nothing that could have set these K2 meters off. But we were asking it to go back and forth between these two meters. And based on the questions, and it was. And so that to me is very very compelling, because, if there’s any electricity in the area, or electromagnetic magnetic waves in the area, both of those two meters should have been responding at the same time. But they weren’t. It was just doing it based on what we were telling it to do. And so after that K2 session we said that was very cool, thank you. And behind us we got a disembodied voice saying,” No. Thank you.”

And I think that was a recognition of you – you recognize me.  You recognized what I liked in life. And, I appreciate that. And that’s why I was able to communicate with you. That was a –  that was a very, very cool investigation for us. And you know like I said, I really like doing those type of trigger items.  And something that’s unique to the location, or to a specific spirit that we’re trying to interact with. If we can do that, I feel that that’s necessary.  Because, I mean in life if you look at the basic human needs, one of those needs is to be recognized.

You know we don’t want to stand in a crowd and not be seen. And I think that’s the same way with entities in the spirit world. You know they, yes we’re talking to them and you can go into a room and say, is anybody here with us? But when you can say Hey Red you know are you here with us. I’m, I’m acknowledging you specifically I’m giving you an episode of Days of Our Lives. I’m giving you a cigarette which I know you like to smoke. I’m recognizing you as the entity –  as Red the entity and that’s who I’m trying to communicate with. I think that goes a long way for, and I do think that’s why we’ve been so fortunate in getting very compelling evidence.

I agree. It’s, respect isn’t it? It’s all about respect. And it’s – that’s what I often say to members in my group who are having paranormal things in their homes.  You know? And they’re saying, well it’s doing this. It’s slamming that. And I say to them, well, have you acknowledged its presence? How would you?

Exactly. Exactly.

How would you feel, if you knew that somebody was aware that you were there and we’re trying desperately to talk to you but you just ignored them? There’s no difference.

Exactly. And that’s why one of the things –  back to your questions about residential and paranormal, or business investigations. That’s why the first thing I do is give them the voice recorder. Take this voice recorder home, set it down and if something happened to start talking. You may sound sound weird, but just start asking questions.  Who are you? How long have you been here? Do you know your dead? And those type of questions.  And see if you get any responses. Because, that I think that’s the first thing.  Recognition is the first thing. If you really want to be a paranormal investigator.  And you really want to excel in this field, you have to recognize that you’re not going in there just to talk to the air.  You’re going in there to try to figure out a specific story and that’s how I think you need to approach an investigation

I agree. I absolutely agree. Oh look Kristie, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed our conversation.

Likewise

And I’m aware of time is moving on so I will close our conversation today.  And thank you so much, for taking the time to share your –  your memories.  Your experiences.  Your journey with us. One last question, before we do close is, where do you think you and your team are heating from here on in? What’s your next plan of action?

We have several investigations that are still lined up. And so that’s in the near future. You know, continuing what we’re doing. Really kind of grow in the paranormal community. When we first started this, it was, we really felt that –  I wouldn’t say alone. But we really didn’t realize how vast the paranormal community was. But, when you go out and you really start talking to other groups, and you start meeting people and you start collaborating, with like minded paranormal investigators. You know that to us is is very refreshing and rewarding. So we’re actually trying to expand and grow in the paranormal community. So doing amazing podcasts like yours and again thank you for inviting us to be here. You know doing doing podcast and stuff like that is –  it’s something that we want to do to kind of bring awareness to our group, but as well as the paranormal community as a whole.  We’re very big with collaborations like I said we’ve done several with Ghost Bike explorations.

And so to reach out and to really get what there’s like minded paranormal investigators, is something that we’re really striving to do and really grow with that in the following years. You know we never really –  I do get asked a lot if this is going to propel us into a TV show or something like that. That’s never been a main goal of ours. We’ve been approached by a couple of producers and we’ve had serious talks with them. But you know both of them really wanted us to change our style and our approach and that’s not what we do. So we’ve respectfully declined those invitations.  But you know that maybe something in the future of where we want to take this. If we could find the right producer or something like that, that may be something in the future. But for now it’s really just about us getting together four or five times a year.  Having a great experience.  Going to some very cool historic places.  And, and just really trying to put forth some compelling evidence, again, that we can’t explain. But, maybe further the dialogue of, of the paranormal. Of the paranormal community, and maybe attempt to elevate this out of a subculture and into more of the mainstream. In a very respectful way, rather than sensationalism.

And I wish you luck in your journey.  And I’m going to be watching you guys from the sidelines and see how you go.  And maybe some time in the future we can have you back, when you’ve got your new investigations up.  To hear more about what’s been happening, I’d really like that, I think

 Absolutely I would. I would love that opportunity again. Thank you so much.

I would like to thank Kristy for joining us today and sharing her experiences and knowledge with us all. As she said in the conversation, Soul Sisters has a YouTube channel where they put up videos of all their investigations. All links to the Soul Sisters website, YouTube channel, and Instagram account can be found from this episodes page on the podcast website: www.walkingtheshadowlands.com

Our great bumper music today was used with the kind permission of Kristy and was especially commissioned by the Soul Sisters for their Youtube channel. It is copyrighted to the Soul Sisters and cannot be used without explicit permission.

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