The Investigation

Darkness settles down over 111 Main St.

The streets clear, people drift off to sleep and all becomes quiet. Except inside the restaurant where the Chicago Paranormal Detectives are now under way with the investigation they have come to perform.

All the media and onlookers have left and it is now approximately 3:00am. Time for us to attempt to answer questions and also try to collect any factual evidence we can. All of our senses become heightened and as our cameras roll, we all begin to try and prepare ourselves for the unknown which lies ahead.

All of us gather together in the darkness on the 3rd floor of the restaurant with Jack Coulter, the owner sitting on the second floor intensely watching the cameras through the laptop. We all begin by walking the floor and checking specific areas in order to see if anything sets off our sensors. As we walked from room to room, our eyes still becoming accustomed to the lack of light, none of us truly felt at ease yet at the same time, there was nothing happening and while I knew it was early, I was beginning to wonder if something was going to happen at all. Not more than 2 minutes later, we heard Moriah exclaim “He’s in there!” and she pointed to a back hallway in a secluded room. All of us raced to where she had indicated with sensors and cameras in hand. Nothing. Moriah then indicated that ‘he’ was moving and was now further down the hallway behind another door. The ‘he’ she was referring to was an older man named “Vincent” who had identified himself to us through her a little earlier in the night when the media and onlookers were still present. While “Vincent” did not portray himself as evil spirited, at the same time he was not the most pleasant. We all continued on after “Vincent” and tried to capture some type of evidence of him. After several minutes of this chasing, we all decided to just sit down in silence and let whatever or whoever come to us in order to make contact.

All of us moved to the main room of the 3rd floor and sat down in reasonable proximity of one another. After a few minutes, we all be began to ask some probing questions. See who we could stir up. Moriah stated she could feel some presences; however, none of them were coming forward. On we all sat, waiting and hoping. I many ways, it was a lot like fishing. You never know if you are truly in the right spot, using the right so called bait and then finally, you just have to wait and see what happens. As we sat in the dark, we continued to ask questions and listen for answers. After some time with no apparent responses, it was now time to turn things up a notch. Austin and I began to provoke the spirits to see if that would generate some type of response. We began to make comments like “There is no one here”, “I guess you can’t do anything which proves our point that you do not exist.” and “If you are truly here prove it. Don’t waste everyone’s time; if you like to scare people try to scare us.” I realize that these comments are not very intense or extreme but at the same time we are trying to keep things somewhat civilized. So on we went and the out of the blue it happened. A flash of light blinded us all. As we were trying to regain our sight in the dark, I could hear Ron say “Check to see if someone was outside taking pictures.” Tom and Brian jumped up and ran to the windows and looked outside. The street was completely empty. Not a soul out there. Just as they are coming back to the group, we hear Ryan Boughton, Jack’s chef begin to speak. He said “I’m staring right at it above me” as he pointed to the ceiling. Then we heard Ryan say “I have nothing to prove to you” and with that, the flood light on the lighting track went on. Now I am not saying that it went on and then off, I mean IT WENT ON! What makes this even harder to understand is that we had been on the 3rd floor since 9:30pm and the light never went on, in fact Jack did not know where the switched even were as the floor was being renovated and to the best of his knowledge, the lights were all controlled by the breakers on the electrical box. In addition o this, none of the other lights anywhere on the entire floor went on. Just this one. With that, we then heard Ryan say “I don’t trust you” and then Ron heard “Hello” come from the doorway.

Without warning then, the light went out and Ryan sprang up from the floor and stated “He’s not the one I say goodnight to.” We asked Ryan what he meant by that and he told us that each night when he locks up the restaurant, he has always said goodnight. Not to anyone in particular but just in general. As if this wasn’t enough, once Ryan made this last comment, all of us noticed that his voice was totally different. All of us were trying to determine what was going on when a shrill whistle cut the darkness. Jack needed us and continued whistling to have us come down to him. All of us ran from the 3rd floor to Jack as we did not know what was wrong. When we got to the second floor, Jack was exclaiming how the EMF detectors located on the second floor were going off like crazy. As with the light on the 3rd floor, the EMF detectors had been in place sine about 9:30pm and had not gone off once when suddenly, they were being activated with extreme intensity.

Once we had finished appraising the situation and hearing what Jack had seen, we saw that Ryan was being helped down the stairs by Moriah and Austin. He was in shock and physically drained. Our priorities and concerns had now changed and making sure Ryan was alright was now all important. We sat Ryan own and gave him some water. We were able calm him down and once he was feeling better, he told us that he did not remember anything that had happened. Ryan stated he recalled the initial flash of light and then the next thing he remembered was being helped down the stairs. We all then proceeded back upstairs to get answers.

Once we were back on the 3rd floor, the first thing we did was to check the track lighting where the one floodlight went on. Standing on a stool, Tom knocked the light bulb and there was nothing. Again and again he knocked on it with no effect. He also checked to make sure the bulb was screwed all the way into the socket and discovered it was. Finally, Tom proceeded to hit the light with such force that the entire track swayed overhead. With this, the light flickered on and then blew out. In addition to the light, e all observed a fake tree that had been standing in the middle of the room to now be lying on the floor. No one could recall bumping into the tree on the way downstairs and only the camera footage would tell us the true tale.

Now that we were all back upstairs, we attempted to pick up the investigation where we left off. Again we threw out questions and provoked in order to get some type of response. Nothing worked this time. Over and over we tried everything we could and nothing seemed to work. We all continued on like this until we heard the words from Moriah “They’re gone.” We knew then that our night, our investigation was over. With all of us coming to this realization, we began the net big task of breaking own our equipment and getting it all packed up. I looked at the time and it was almost 6:00 am. Time flies when you’re having fun I guess.

Everyone wanted to know what we caught on video and audio. Did we capture the holy grail of paranormal investigations? Will we hear voices from beyond? What discoveries and astonishment would be revealed to us? Only time would tell…and the clock was now ticking!