The investigation took place October 31, 2021, beginning at 9 p.m. My co-investigator, Scott Geddes, met after I had taken possession of the rental and set up all the equipment. The plan was to sit, talk about Taos history and the paranormal, and generally stir things up like any normal visitor to the sweet little room on Dona Luz Street in Taos, New Mexico.
I had reserved the room for several months and was really looking forward to the investigation. The plans I had for how the evenings and investigations were to go changed over time because of Covid and that I had curtailed tours for the balance of the season.
At this point, I felt the best thing to do would be to keep everything pretty low-key, and the night started out pretty noisy with car sounds and a lot of activity on or near the Plaza.
At midnight, Scott and I set up the recorders and then left the building, locking the door behind us. I came by the next day and picked them up. They either ran out of recording space or battery. The MP3 audio recorder has space for nearly 6 hours, and the video camera for about 3 hours.
I downloaded the data, deleted files, recharged batteries, and Scott and I met again the next evening at 9 p.m., talked until nearly midnight, set up the recorders, and left, just like the night before.
We had a couple of anecdotal incidents (something happening without recorders operating), but each of them has been debunked. The first was when the tin cross hanging over my head started to vibrate, but it turns out a minor earthquake centered in the Estacada Plains occurred near that time (9:10 p.m.)
We thought something paranormal was happening when an ornamental wall hanging started to vibrate, but there was actually an earthquake at the same time. Predictably, both Scott and I got excited and kind of giddy, the way these things make a person, and it took a little while to calm down, but we subsequently feel it is debunked from being any paranormal activity. It is interesting to point out, however, of all the tin ornaments that were hanging on the wall, the tin cross pictured was the only one that made any noise.
Another is the sound of rustling but we determined that quiet guests in the next room were getting a snack and the noise we heard was from the packaging. It was intermittent and seemed to come from different places, but It was determined that’s just the way sound behaves with adobe bricks.
One anecdotal incident that isn’t so easily explained away is Scott reported feeling a cobweb feeling on his right cheek as we checked out the basement and the entrance to the tunnels. The thing is there aren’t any real cobwebs or anything there. It’s pretty clean for what it is, so perhaps there’s something to that. ghost presences or touches are often described this way.
Audio Evidence
As much as we’d like to present audio evidence, what we have is so slight and difficult to hear we opted to just tell you about it rather than enhance audio to the point of ridiculousness.
What I am willing to say is there were some familiar sounds that I had heard on a previous investigation and I was glad to be able to disqualify them as anything paranormal.
One of these sounds is the cyclic tone sound which plays for a few seconds, stops then is followed by a thud. After the several intervening years, somewhere there is a piece of equipment that cycles on and off, and the regularity has “refrigerator” written all over it.
Another sound that contributes to the overall difficulty in presenting any audio evidence is the regular sound of dripping water. People who are regular paranormal investigators are aware of how the presence of running water contributes to audio manifestations because of the human ear’s need to overlay or put a pattern where none exists. This phenomenon is called “auditory pareidolia.”
That being said, I want to describe the several things I thought I heard behind all that noise. To me and to Scott both we thought we could hear music and singing waaaaay back behind the white noise of the recorder’s micro-chip signal, water, and other ambiance of the basement tunnels.
To me, it sounded like a performance that begins at roughly the same time every night, but with slight variations. Like a setlist of a performer. The voice sounded like a tenor, and the singing was a little raucous in places, sounded almost drunk sometimes, and was in a singing style that sounded Spanish. At one place in the recording, I could almost hear the word “agua,” and the songs were many-versed and sometimes it sounded like other people were singing along.
There was also the sound of a piano being played, strumming and guitar finger-picking. At one point on the second day, I hear a man say “Jesus,” but I cannot confirm it because when I played it back for Scott he was unable to hear it.
Day 1 – October 31, 2021:
Ghost Radar Classic Words
Ghost Radar is an application you can download on your phone. The app looks at readings that the phone can detect, based on the GPS or the FM receiver that’s built into all cell phones — if there’s any fluctuation of the baseline, the theory is that there’s a paranormal entity out there that is trying to manipulate the sensors on the phone so that it could somehow communicate.
7:30 p.m.: Trunk, TV, Best, Feed, Alike, And, Minerals
9:25 p.m.: Develop, Jump, Spain, Go, Fought, Richard, Race
10:48 p.m.: We had three different Ghost Radar applications going. We specifically asked for anyone’s story, if they had one to tell.
IPhone: Labor, Friendly, Central, Not, About, Courage, Coat, Johnny, Cell, Sail, Russia, Ann, Offer, None, Listen
IPad: Cross
Blackberry: Mail
Day 2 – November 1, 2021
This seemed like a quieter time. there was no giddy immediate experience which always tends to set the energy higher. This evening the town was quieter by far. Scott and I sat up in the guest room until 11:30 p.m., then we set up the recorders and left the building. I returned the next morning and packed up the equipment and checked out.
Day 2 – November 1, 2021:
Ghost Radar Classic Words
iPhone: David, Ship, Billy, Elephant, Sam, Brother, Conversation, Can’t, Fight, Massage, Pencil, Rome, Aware, United, Sent, Peter, Length, Driven, Clothing, Of, Don’t, MR.
iPad: Dear
Blackberry: Property, Specific, Military
Conclusion:
The two-day investigation did not yield any particularly spectacular evidence, but it sure was fun to hang out for two nights and see what we can see. I may try to do it again next year. I’ll be investing in some better equipment because, we all know, more gear means more opportunity for SPOOKINESS!
Stay spooky, my friends!!
Ghosts of Taos 