Stalking Shadows (17 page)

I called Randy on his cellphone and told him what I’d seen. The next day, he telephoned to say they were at the site until about four o’clock in the morning, but they found no sign of the demon I’d seen.

Last time we checked, the pastor reported that things have calmed down considerably. No longer are the teenagers being frightened by a dark shadow, and items are remaining in place. Still, I have to wonder if somewhere, waiting for the right opportunity, the demon I saw is waiting to strike—only time will tell.

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Chapter 12

Home Sweet Haunted Home

While it’s not unusual for the owner of a house to haunt the place after they die, every once in a while you come across a very unique case. The Loop-Harrison mansion is one of those cases. The house was built in the 1800s, and the people who have lived there throughout the years have retained almost every object from previous owners. This not only preserved history, it also left a multitude of objects for spirits to come back and live in after death.

Close to the tip of the Thumb Area in the State of Michigan stands a glorious mansion. It’s built in the style of a house that looks like it appeared in the movie
Mary Poppins
—a large Elizabethan mansion that is absolutely gorgeous.

Dr. Loop, a country doctor, built the home for his adoring wife in the 1800s. Together they raised two children, Emma and Stanley, in the home. The good doctor added a side entrance that led directly into his office, where he would see his patients.

History tells us that Dr. Loop performed more than one surgery on the massive, wooden kitchen table, and that not all of his patients lived through their operations.

The house itself is three stories tall; the third story constitutes the attic. It sits on ten acres of property that now is home to many historic buildings that have been moved there from their previous locations. The original barn Dr. Loop built is now home to a very popular community theatre.

What’s even more remarkable is that the Loop family threw little away. Most of the original furniture and all of Dr. Loop’s medical records, medicine, and surgical instruments remain in the house to this day.

Dr. Loop’s son, Stanley, joined the military and quickly rose to the rank of captain. His daughter, Emma, married a minister, and they lived in the home with Dr. Loop and his wife. Once Emma’s parents passed away, Emma remained in the home with her husband and children.

Across the street from the Loop family home stood rental properties built by Dr. Loop and owned by the family after the doctor’s death. Every month, Emma would dutifully walk across the street and collect the rent from the tenants and check on the property.

One fateful night in the early 1900s, Emma left the mansion and began her walk through the front gardens to the road. She was going to collect the rent money. As she was crossing the road, she was struck by a car.

People rushed to her aid and carried her into one of the parlors of the mansion, and a doctor was summoned. Despite all best efforts, Emma died within a few short hours after the accident. She was buried in the local cemetery, close to her parents.

Years passed, and the house never left the ownership of the family, until one of Emma’s relatives deeded the house and property to the city. The city turned the house into a museum, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Since that time, a group of dedicated volunteers have turned the Loop estate in a marvelous place to visit. They’ve added Native American displays, shipwreck relics, and mementos from every war.

In addition, they’ve raised money and moved countless historical buildings set for destruction to the property, and these buildings have been lovingly restored and filled with various antiques.

Through all of this, one thing has remained constant: some members of the Loop family aren’t ready to give up their home and still roam its halls in spirit.

Our team, Black River Paranormal, was called in to investigate the museum by members of the Board of Directors.

The woman who met with us said that there’d been many reports of Emma being seen in various places around the museum, as well as other paranormal events. The volunteers at the museum wanted to make sure there weren’t any malevolent entities, along with Emma, roaming the halls of the house and outbuildings.

One of the volunteers took us out to a small barn behind the house. Inside the barn was an old horse-drawn hearse, complete with the basket Dr. Loop used to put the bodies in for transport! While no one has admitted to any paranormal activity in the area around the hearse, I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if some was occurring.

The hearse was black, of course, and held lanterns on the seat on either side of the driver’s bench and, if memory serves me correctly, lanterns on the rear of the vehicle as well.

We were mesmerized by the look and feeling of the hearse. The energy around the hearse didn’t feel odd, although I did detect an air of sadness, which wouldn’t be unusual. The museum volunteer opened the back doors of the hearse so we could climb up the steps attached to the hearse and look inside. We climbed up the back and stuck our heads inside of it to get a closer look. We could still detect the sweet, sickly smell of death permeating from the basket and inside walls. The hearse was way too cool! All of use wanted to stay to see if any spirits lingered within its eerie interior, but, alas, the mansion beckoned and we were anxious to get the investigation going.

The team and some of the volunteers gathered around the massive, well-worn wooden table in the kitchen—the same one Dr. Loop used to perform surgeries on, and on which many people died.

Donna, as we’ll call her, told us that Emma seems to be the most active in the house. She told us that one time, during a party, one of the guests felt someone take his arm. When he turned around to see who it was, there was no one even near him at the time.

On another occasion, one of the volunteers saw Emma standing at the top of the stairs. She appeared to be watching people decorate the house for Christmas, with many of the antique tree ornaments and other holiday decorations Emma would have used during her lifetime. When Emma realized she’d been discovered, she completely vanished right before the person’s eyes.

Donna went on to tell us about a recent event in which the fire inspector came to check the fire extinguishers, and make sure the museum met all fire safety standards.

He climbed the stairs to the second floor and turned the corner toward the long hallway that ran the length of the house. He went into the first room on the right, which would have been Emma’s room. He saw a woman standing in front of the window on the other side of the room.

She was dressed in period clothing from the late 1800s to early 1900s, and the fire inspector assumed it was one of the volunteers dressed in clothing to match the era of the home—that is until he realized the woman didn’t have any feet, and appeared to be suspended in mid-air!

He was frozen in place with confusion and fear. The woman turned and smiled at him and then dissipated into nothingness. That was enough for the inspector. He raced down the stairs and out of the house, like he’d been shot from a cannon.

One of the museum volunteers ran out after him, and the inspector told her what he’d experienced. She coaxed him back into the house and showed him a picture of Emma. The fire inspector confirmed she was the woman he’d seen.

Captain Stanley’s room, which is down the hall to the left, holds not only some of the captain’s own personal items, but items from various shipwrecks, including the
Regina
. The
Regina
sunk on Lake Huron, close to where the museum is located.

Donna reported that numerous people, including herself, have seen a man looking out the back window of the room. People have seen the curtain pulled back, and the distinct features of a man’s face watching them from above. Whether this man is Captain Stanley or not is uncertain, because the features of the man appear distorted due to the original glass, which is kind of wavy, and the fact that the spirit probably wasn’t fully materializing.

She went on to say that medicinal odors have been detected on many occasions in Dr. Loop’s office. Upon inspection, we noticed a large cupboard on one of the side walls, filled with medicine bottles that Dr. Loop once used. Some of the bottles still contained medicine. We made a note to try to debunk the odors during the investigation.

There have also been reports of various knickknacks being moved from room to room but, because of the number of volunteers in and out of the museum, it’s hard to attribute that activity to anything paranormal.

While some team members set up our wireless cameras and checked other equipment to make sure they were functional and had fresh batteries, I wandered into Dr. Loop’s office, which is just out the kitchen door, to the left.

Sitting in a chair behind the desk was a life-sized mannequin, with a head that was fashioned to look like Dr. Loop. I have to admit that, number one, I don’t like dolls, and number two, this mannequin was just creepy. As you walked around the room, you’d swear the eyes were following you. The entire room had an uneasy feeling about it.

Donna, who’d followed me into the office, told me that sometimes she’d lock up the museum at night, and when she returned the next morning, the mannequin of Dr. Loop would be moved or reposed in some fashion.

While Donna admitted other people have keys to the museum, and that it’s possible someone came in after she left late at night and moved the mannequin, she wasn’t convinced that was the case. More than once she’d questioned the volunteers after such an event, and they denied being at the museum at all that day.

From a paranormal investigation point of view, we can’t attribute Dr. Loop’s mannequin moving as a paranormal occurrence, however, we did make sure we had a static video camera pointed at the mannequin the entire time, during the investigation.

With all the equipment in place, the team divided into pairs and headed off to separate areas of the museum. Randy and I decided to start in Dr. Loop’s office on the first floor.

We were busy taking pictures and conducting an EVP session, when both of us smelled a very distinctive odor throughout the small room. It was a medicinal smell, but not knowing enough about medications, I couldn’t identify what kind.

Randy and I walked over to the medicine cabinet to see if the odor was stronger in that area, but it smelled the same. We then noticed there was a heating vent on the wall next to the medicine cabinet and thought that the aroma of the medicine in the cabinet could be distributed throughout the room when the heat came on.

We requested that the heat be turned off until further notice and then turned on the ceiling fan in the room in an attempt to dissipate the odor. While we were waiting, we walked into the parlor just off of Dr. Loop’s office.

This was the lady’s parlor, as we’d been told. It held a beautifully upholstered love seat and three matching chairs. The room also contained an old piano that belonged to Emma, and a few end tables.

We spent about an hour investigating that room, with no discernible results, before going back to Dr. Loop’s office. The smell we noticed earlier was gone, and we once again began investigating.

Within a few moments, the odor returned—stronger this time. An inspection of the heat vent showed that it was off, and so we turned off the ceiling fan, to see if that made a difference. Once again, we had to wait for the smell to go away, so we went into the gentlemen’s parlor to investigate. This room was unremarkable, and yielded nothing paranormal that we could detect.

Randy and I then returned to Dr. Loop’s office, and there wasn’t any trace of the smell we’d notice before. Again, a few minutes later, the smell returned. We knew the heat was off, and so was the ceiling fan.

This makes perfect sense. It’s not unusual for ghosts, spirits, and other types of entities to use a distinct smell to let people know they are there. Granted, this is the first time I’d had a ghost use medicine instead of perfume, tobacco, or flowers, but given that Dr. Loop was a physician, the use of a medicinal odor would distinguish him from any other entity that may be present.

I could sense the presence of a spirit this time, and knew it was a male entity, but every attempt to communicate with him was met with silence. Randy was busy doing an EVP session, and upon playback, we could hear a male voice that didn’t belong to Randy, or any other male member of the team, but we couldn’t make out what he was saying.

Randy and I then opened the medicine cabinet to see if we could determine what medicine we were smelling. After testing five or six different bottles of liquid medicine, we discovered the odor was caused by digitalis—a heart medication.

We don’t know if Dr. Loop took this medicine, but we decided after some debate, that Dr. Loop was using the very unique smell of digitals as a signal to the living that he was present in the space.

As we left the office, we noticed one of our investigators in the foyer conducting an EVP session. The investigator said, “Mrs. Loop? You have a lovely home.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, we saw him jump back—startled.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Someone put their hand on my wrist,” he said. “It wasn’t a malicious gesture, it was more of a friendly touch.”