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Whispers Estate - A Truely Haunted House?

 

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Michigan's Otherside Takes a Trip to Whispers and Shrugs Their Shoulders As to the Completely Bewildering Experience Had There.

Whispers Estate – Mitchell, Indiana

December 27, 2007

If you’re going to drive six hours for an overnight investigation and drive six hours back home the next day, it better be worth it…

Our six hour trip complete with arguments and wrong turns was worth it. Our friend Doug had visited Whispers Estate a few months prior to our investigation and came back raving about what he had experienced. Disembodied voices heard with the actual ear and all sorts of other activity.

Whispers Estate is on Warren Street in the small, quiet town of Mitchell, Indiana. The first thing I noticed when we turned onto the street was the funeral home across from Whispers. It was the brightest place on the block with ornate light posts along the road and Christmas lights on the building. I got a kick out of that.

Walking up to Whispers, two cement angels stood at the front walk-way silently looking up, offering a prayer for the spirits left behind. Warm light spilled out onto the wrap around porch from the front window, seemingly making this place appear to be the coziest house on the street. We peeked inside like a couple of stalkers and saw everyone inside already.

The inside of Whispers Estate is lavishly decorated with antiques and replicas in the Victorian style. Crystal chandeliers hang in the parlor and dining room. The furniture, four poster beds and stained glass make you feel like you’ve stepped back in time. Eerie paintings by the owner of Whispers grace the walls reminding you that the homes’ cozy interior masks the ghostly activity that lurks. The home was built in the early 20 th century and it’s believed the ghosts of past owners Dr. John Gibbons and his wife Jesse, along with their adopted children Rachel and twin brother Enus haunt the old home. On Christmas day in 1912, a fire started and took Rachel’s life. Burn marks from that awful day still remain in the home. A pocket door hidden for years between the parlor and dining room showed burn marks from that terrible day. When owner Jarrett Marshall bought the home and began tearing up the carpet to expose the hard wood floors, he found pressboard on the parlor floor and under that were burns as well. It’s reported Rachel’s brother died two years later and that they are buried in the backyard of Whispers.

Our Investigation Begins…

The first thing we did was arm the house with recording devices. After what Doug had witnessed on his last visit, we wanted to be ready if the activity started to happen. We had a condenser microphone upstairs and downstairs. There was a video camera running along with another digital recorder in Rachel’s bedroom upstairs and more handheld digital recorders downstairs with people. We dimmed the lights in the parlor and started talking to the air around us. I always feel stupid at the beginning of an EVP session because it feels like your talking to nothing… until it answers back. I was completely stunned when we started to hear the beginnings of many strange sounds that night with our own ears. Jarrett started asking Rachel questions, asking if she’d come out. The first sound of the evening was very strange and eerie. I can’t quite explain it but you can listen to it. It was coming from upstairs and no one was up there. The only thing on the second floor was our very in-human recording equipment. Doug quickly exclaimed that was how the sounds started during his last visit to Whispers.

This sound clip is the first time we heard the bizarre sound comeing from upstairs. After you hear our group talking about a doll, a strange sound is heard.

Excitement in the room grew when we continued to hear more sounds including what sounded like two men talking. We couldn’t make anything out except for mumbling. We continued to hear tinkering sounds and thuds and the icing on the cake was the sound of someone running upstairs.

In this clip, you will hear the sounds of the footsteps/running we heard come from upstairs.

With so much noise coming from the second floor, we decided to go see if anything had been moved. We had set up Jacks along a dresser and spelled Rachel’s name in some magnetic letters. Nothing had been disturbed. For the next session, myself and Bonnie stayed upstairs in Rachel’s room and the guys all stayed in the parlor. I laid there on the bed in the dark, able to see the dolls displayed on the dresser through the Night Shot on my video camera. One doll in particular was extra creepy. It was a burnt up doll that has a strange story as to how it got that way.Doug told me, “Some past guests had asked, "Rachael, show us what you look like." The doll dropped from nowhere onto either the staircase or at the end of Rachael's bed (I cannot remember, but somehow I associate the doll story with both of those places). When a lady went to pick it up, it was smoking and very hot to the touch.”

The burnt doll looked back at me and I was waiting for the disturbing thing to go flying off the dresser or turn its head all the way around, but nothing happened. Bonnie started to breathe heavy and I think she was dozing off when suddenly a bunch of noise came from the attic. In the parlor below, the guys heard what sounded like a ball bouncing. Previously in the night, Doug had asked for “Rachel to bring us her Jacks ball.”

Doug and Jarrett had decided to head up to the attic so that there were people on every floor. In the past, the attic has had a lot of activity and currently, Jarrett was remodeling it to make more rooms available for the bed and breakfast and if you know a thing or two about the paranormal, you might have heard remodeling in a home almost always seems to stir up paranormal activity even more.

Bonnie and I heard what sounded like boards being dropped. We yelled up to Doug and Jarrett and asked if they were Okay and Doug yelled back, “It’s paranormal!! We need a flashlight quick!” Bonnie bolted off the bed and dashed up to the attic. I didn’t have a flashlight and shamefully will admit, stayed on the bed for a few seconds paralyzed and just a tad spooked out. Someone finally shined a light inside the dark bedroom for me and I bolted for the attic with everyone else.

Doug and Jarrett were stumped as to what had happened. They were sitting in the small attic space when they heard the sound of a ball drop on the floor and then a few loose boards that were leaning on the walls moved and actually hit Jarrett on the head. The ball found was the missing Jacks ball Doug had asked for earlier in the evening.

This audio clip is the sound of the ball dropping heard from the downstairs parlor and the chaos of every one running upstairs.

While on a break between EVP sessions, the overpowering smell of old cologne or shaving cream infused the parlor. The smell moved around the room and particularly seemed to plague Bonnie, who could hardly stand it. No one there had cologne on and the smell came and went.

This is the same sound you heard in the First EVP clip, only this time it's much more louder.

After Jarrett asks Rachel to remember back 95 years ago, you hear an odd moaning sound.

After more EVP sessions with more strange noises, Jarrett and Bonnie headed back up to the attic. They weren’t up there long when they yelled for us to come up. We ran upstairs again like a heard of elephants and didn’t know what to say when we saw about nine jacks lying on the attic floor. Bonnie said she even heard the sound of a ball bouncing in the attic but once the lights were on, no ball was found.

Eventually, the activity seemed to slow down along with us. I started to drift off to sleep at 4:30 AM and the door between our room and the dining room opened. There was a chain lock on it so it didn’t open all the way. I kicked my boyfriend and told him the door was opening and he mumbled something about the door jam not being true. So did the door just open on its own, or did one of the resident ghosts come down to tuck us into bed? Who knows.

Our buddy Jason’s room was next to ours and the lights blazed in his room all night long. Jason was told his room was the doctor’s operating office and a highly active room. With how the night had gone, Jason wasn’t going to take any chances and kept the lights on all night.

Written by Amberrose Hammond

 

 

 

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