About 5 years ago, some friends, Randy and Robin, stopped by with some pictures of an old abandoned house, near Elgin, Illinois, that they were interested in purchasing. The house was originally discovered by Randy while he was doing some treasure hunting with a metal detector on a wooded piece of property. There was a narrow dirt road running back into the woods. He had followed the road earlier in the summer, but it was overgrown with trees and bushes.

Now, it was late in the fall and, to his surprise, he came upon a large house, deep in the woods. He hadn't noticed it before, but now, with the leaves off of the trees, it was much more obvious. As he got closer, he found that the trees had grown up around it, but none had damaged the house. In fact, the trees seemed to be growing away from it.

Randy and his fiancée, Robin, planned to be married soon. Randy believed that, with a little work, this house would make an ideal home for the two of them to raise a family. He jumped in his pickup truck and went back to find Robin.

Robin could see that the house needed a lot of work, but she was strangely attracted to it. In fact, they both were. The entry had a heavy wooden door which seemed to be stuck-- maybe nailed shut-- Randy thought, as he pushed with all his might. Unable to force the door open, he began looking for another way in. Robin decided to try the door again, and just slightly turned the knob. It swung open easily, and the two stepped inside.

The rooms were large, with heavy timbers used in the construction. Plaster had fallen off from almost every wall, and lay smashed in piles of dust on the floor. Where the plaster had fallen, openings were left which showed that the wall behind was constructed of wooden planks. The windows were high, but not very wide, containing 12 panes of glass in each. Many of the windows were broken. Randy noticed, however, that there was absolutely no evidence of wild animals anywhere in the house. Usually, raccoons will make an abandoned house their home, and this house seemed to have been abandoned for decades.

It was on this first visit that they began to feel uncomfortable-- as if the house was whispering to them. It was almost like a dead-still kind of feeling-- as if you felt you had to say something to break the roaring silence. Randy and Robin both nervously spoke at the same time, making each other jump. Randy said, "I think we should go now," and they both ran out as fast as they could.

They were not discouraged by their fear, however, since they returned again later, bringing Randy's mom and dad-- and a camera. They took many pictures using a 35mm automatic exposure camera. Not much light entered the rooms, so the camera compensated by lengthening the exposure time. Taking pictures under these conditions has a tendency to cause blurry photos if the photographer is not very steady.

When my wife and I saw the pictures, on that night five years ago, we could see that almost every photo contained areas of foggy or misty transparent "blobs." These did not appear consistently in the same areas, and it sometimes took some searching to even notice them. As we all looked a the pictures, my wife covered her mouth and said, "O my God." Shivers ran down our spines as we noticed a kind of red light fog on one photo. When the photo was turned upside down, the red image formed a very obvious skull. We then began studying the shots upside down, which revealed much more than we had seen originally. Misty skulls and faces appeared in a number of pictures, as well as a complete murder scene of a woman lying in a bed and a cloaked man standing over her, holding a knife. Some of the pictures took a little imagination to view, but some were very apparent and universally seen by all of us.

Though it has been five years since that visit, I was able to track Randy and his family down, and he told me of his subsequent encounters with the house.

Randy had continued to return to the house and land nearly 100 times after those first few visits. (He plans to write a book about his experiences.) Randy had married Robin, but they divorced, and the original photos remained with her. Over the years, the pictures had been passed around and shown to psychics and spirit phenomena experts. On the back of some of the pictures, one psychic had written about the feelings that came while viewing the photographs. At my request, Randy was able to retrieve the pictures that he had shot but, oddly enough, some of the best ones were now missing.

On the back of one photo, the psychic wrote, "A man is in window-- mean and laughing." This picture is blurred from time exposure, and all of the items in the picture are doubled-- except one. On closer examination, a very clear and apparent belt buckle hangs in empty space.

Another picture reads, "A young girl on the right." The shot is taken of a wall, again blurred and out of focus. At first glance, this picture reveals very little, but turning the picture over makes things easier to spot. There is a face and body of what appears to be a girl, viewed from an overhead angle. (This is on the middle left of the shot, while the psychic said the girl was on the right.) If you look at the figure on the right, it appears to be a doll. I scanned this photo and increased the contrast to see what might be brought out.

I was examining the figure of the girl. She appears to be somewhat plump, sitting on a chair with her hands in her lap. Then I blew the picture up to full screen, and studied the doll. Suddenly, I got a chill down my spine, and ran to get my wife to see if she saw the same thing. She did. The doll now appears to be a stack of three skulls, with very little imagination required to see it. (Once you spot the skulls, you won't be able to sleep at night.)

 
For "girl" photo, with comments and close-ups, be sure to continue to page three, "Photo Phenomena."

Randy told me that there had been attempts to demolish the house over the years, but all failed. Evidence of one attempt is visible in a photograph where it appears that one of the main pillars of the house had been wrapped with a heavy chain, which left indentations on all of the corners of the pillar. What was used to pull the chain is not evident, but the indentations are deep, suggesting a tractor or other heavy powered equipment. The pillar appears to be of oak or hickory, which is known for its ability to resist scratches and dents. Apparently, the house refused to budge.

Randy and a friend drove to the property in Randy's pickup truck. They found a small barn, or garden shed, and decided to park the pickup inside. They both left the truck and began exploring, when suddenly a huge, deafening sound-- like a bomb exploding-- came from the shed where they had parked. They ran back to find that a large pipe had crashed through the back wall of the shed, through the back of the pickup bed, and continued forward, piercing the front seat and imbedding itself in the dashboard. The truck was still able to be driven, but the pipe had to be cut in pieces to be removed from the pickup. It appeared to be made of brass, with of total weight of 700 lb. Odd-- the trajectory of the pipe was almost flat, based on the hole in the shed wall and the height of the pickup truck. Outside the shed, for about 70 feet, was just open space; then woods. It was as if the pipe had been thrown through the shed wall and into the pickup by someone standing outside. The fact is, it would have taken four or five men just to lift the pipe, and there was no one else around.