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Built in 1870, this 135-year-old 5,000-square-foot Italianate
mansion that became The Raven's Grin Inn has served the village of Mt. Carroll, IL variously and infamously over the decades
as a hotel, tavern, boardinghouse, bordello and apartment building. In the 1890's its stone walled cellar sheltered most of
the village residents during a tornado. Former occupents have reported being awakend in a back bedroom of the house by some
unseen presence calling their names. Also, many witnesses have claimed to have seen a ghostly "lady in white" hovering in
the stone cellar of the house.
Investigation
August 27 & 28, 2005
8:30pm - 3:00am
Equipment:
TriField emf meter, noncontact infrared digital thermometer, 1 digital
voice recorder, 1 Nikon digital camera, Hi8 video camera with night shot.
Investigators:
Jim, Holly,Trevor
Baseline readings:
emf: 0 - 1.5 mg (except where noted below)
temp: 65° - 74°
We arrived at the Raven's Grin Inn around
8:30pm and met the owners, Jim Warfield and his wife. We were taken on an hour tour of the old mansion, by Jim, and given
the history on the house and the alleged hauntings that have taken place there. After the tour and the briefing, we were given
free reign to conduct our investigation of the inn.
We first decided we would get some baseline
readings, which were what we considered normal, except in the front room, the Warfield's living quarters and directly underneath
these two rooms in the basement. In these areas there were unusually high emf readings, but upon further investigation we
concluded, were being caused by electrical wires running through the basement under these rooms.
Our first point of investigation was the wine
cellar, we decided to start here as it is where the "Lady in white" is reported to make her presence known. Though,
we did not record any unusual emf spikes here or temperature fluctuations, we were able to see a blue orb move across the
ceiling with the naked eye. This alone would not bring us to make a claim of a haunting, but directly outside of the cellar
door we did record an emf spike to 5mg, which dropped back to 0mg shortly thereafter.
After leaving the wine cellar, we examined
the rest of the house, where no further abnormalities were recorded, except in the attic. Here we noticed a slight emf spike
to 3mg, in an area which was previously recorded as 0mg. It is also here, where we captured what seems to be orbs in a beam
moving from the floor to the ceiling. There were no foreign objects in front of the camera that could
have caused this effect. We concluded our investigation back in the wine cellar, where we had another opportunity to interview
the Warfield's at great length.This is an ongoing investigation.
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