South Portland, ME – This was another example of the few client cases we have aired. The owners of Hillside Hall invited us in and left their home in our care for two nights, because the experiences we encountered during the first night of investigation were so confusing, they warranted deeper study. Luckily for us, the homeowners were gracious enough, and perhaps curious enough, to allow this repeat visit.

This private residence was once dormitories for a local college, but over the past century the home has been the residence of the first mayor of South Portland, a brothel for sailors in World War 2, and a nursing home for elderly women. It’s been notably haunted for quite some times throughout all these identities, something that the current homeowners have been experiencing since day one.

The hauntings began as soon as the homeowner’s children moved into the 3^rd floor, and included a lamp getting knocked off a shelf, knocking within the walls, and a child getting hit with a marble. Throughout the first year of renovations, the hauntings seemed to emanate from the third floor, creeping downward and forcing the family to consider moving out. Since that time, the renovations ended and so did the severity of the activity, turning from threatening encounters to period music playing through rooms without radios and gentle conversations happening beyond intelligible earshot. Knowing this, the team had a large swath of encounters to work through, to try to give the homeowners answers.

Strange things occurred almost immediately, including a strange man unknown to the homeowner walking in to the house, meeting with Shawn and swaying while he spoke before suddenly leaving (this unnerved us because this was reminiscent to the Amityville Haunting…). However, the strange feeling of the house tapered out quickly, leaving us with loads of unanswered questions. We weren’t originally going to return, but a few curious things happened that made us return. First, a psychic told Ash that the investigation was a hub of ‘portals’ that needed to be looked in to, second and most importantly was when Katie got home she saw a being crawling on her kitchen floor, and later in her daughters room. After telling the apparition to leave, she knew she needed to go back to Hillside Hall and do more.

Immediately upon our return, the feeling was back. Ty saw something going up the staircase as Katie felt a wave of strangeness come over her. When following this entity, Ty’s recorder turned itself off, and from here the team split and continued to have experiences. From wandering blobs of energy setting off their K-II meters to distant bumps and knocks, and Katie letting the team know that they were intently being watched, the house was alive again. Probably the most intriguing was that after the first visit, the team deduced that the spirits were constantly moving away from the team – and by leaving recorders in places far away from mission control, they were able to confirm activity was indeed spiking when they were away. To finalize the night, the team decided to raise their vibrations in a metaphysical practice to reach the spirits at their level and let them know they intended no harm.

While the entire investigation was highly confusing, forcing the team to mix up their techniques was critical in their growth of not dealing with ‘a typical haunt’ if something like that truly exists. Regardless, the team was able to provide the homeowners documentations of their experiences, and confirm that the spirits that did reside there likely just wanted to be left alone.