Geist, IN -  residence

What does haunted mean? The dictionary states that "haunted" is a verb that means "To inhabit, visit, or appear to in the form of a ghost or other supernatural being." Does this mean the spirit has to be malevolent, in order to consider a place haunted?  Or can it simply be something unexplained?    I pose this question to you, to better understand this investigation.  Jason and I were contacted by a home owner in Geist Indiana that had seen a shadow. This was no ordinary shadow.  He wanted us to come and see it for ourselves. 

  But before we discuss that possibility. Let’s talk about the situation.  The house is in an older neighborhood in Geist, and the house was built in the early 1980s. After the owner living 5 years in this house its time to move. The house is going up for sale and the owner is getting married and combining households.  The previous owner rented it out for a while, before he sold it. There are no stories in the area of supernatural events.  We were a little skeptical but we keep an open mind about these things. (Ok, I was skeptical).  Before we came to the house, a friend of his had burnt sage around the house for protection.  If there were anything wrong, that should have surely cleansed the house of any bad or evil.  

  Yet, the owner insists that he keeps seeing this shadow. Its not a very large house, only 1700 square feet total. Nothing should get by us. In preparation for the move, we spent several evenings in the house to try and catch this shadow on camera. Hours passed with nothing.

 Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw it. A black shadow moving at the corner of the hall and dinning room. Jason saw it too and it stopped us both in our tracks. As we turned to face it, it vanished down the hall. We were shocked at what we saw. This was no ordinary shadow. It was a dog.

   It turns out that the previous renters actually had several dogs, running loose in the backyard. There was a doggie door and the yard had been in terrible shape prior to the present owner fixing it up. One of the rooms had been a child’s room, which had long since been painted over. I can only guess that the spirit of the dog had remained with the house, long after the family had moved on.

    We never were able to get pictures of the dog. He would scurry away whenever we looked directly at him. But I got the impression he was just happy to have someone to play with. [4/2005]

 Pictures taken by Jason & Darren (MRIPA)