#GhostHunt No.10: the Fairlamb House B&B in Delta, CO

 All this fall, winter, and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. You can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book" for more context and a bit of backstory about the project.

This week's account reports on our paranormal investigation at the Fairlamb House B&B in Delta, CO.

But first a S/O to owners John Taylor and Elizabeth Thompson, who offered us coffee and then gave us total run of their lovely B&B.

The establishment has reported poltergeist activity, including a rocking chair (by itself, of course), as well as five resident ghosts -- all women. Some time ago, a visiting Lakota shaman performed a ceremony to free those trapped at this location. Also, one previous owner in the early 20th Century found skeletal remains in the nearby desert, brought it back, and stored it for years in the house's attic.

We were a little nervous about what ghosts remained in the house after the medicine man’s release ceremony. We needn’t have been!

Because one couple had witnessed all five women spirits at the same time in the Millard Room, we chose to start our investigation there.

Millard Fairlamb Room

Baseline EMF readings fell in the 510mG range near the bed and slightly lower everywhere else in the room. (EMF stands for Electromagnetic Field, and ghosts are said to manipulate this energy as a way to manifest or communicate.) 

Our EchoVox spirit box went so crazy with squelching feedback that we heard very little in real time. So we recorded with the spirit box for only a short while and resorted to straight audio recording to see if we could detect any EVPs later. (EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon, sometimes occurring on audio recordings but can also be generated through a spirit box. Our EchoVox generates only random sounds -- no words -- and it's up to a spirit to assemble and create intelligible responses.)

More interesting during the real-time EchoVox session, our flashlight flickered immediately after we asked spirits to use the energy generated by our 160-lumen lamp to dim the light. Simultaneously, the EMF meter increased by 160mG. We documented the dimming of the light on video. The correlation of request, dimming, and EMF fluctuation was striking, and confirmed the willingness of an unseen presence or presences to interact with us. 

Video of flashlight experiment

Later EchoVox analysis drew responses to our question about who was there, giving the names “Hutch” three times (in a man’s voice), and “Wilhelm” once (in a woman’s voice). The EchoVox also produced a man’s voice saying “girls” and a different man’s voice saying, “Crappy ... thing?” – as though expressing an opinion. 

 EVP of "crappy ... thing?"

When we’d asked whether the entities in the B&B preferred the term “ghosts” or “spirits,” we got immediate responses, including a boy’s voice twice saying, “Ghosts.” During our investigations, we’ve seldom recorded children’s voices.

EVP of "ghosts" four times!

On audio-only recording analysis, we picked up the EVP of a feminine vioce whispering, “Help me, Kym.” (Messages like this tend to frustrate us since we only hear them in analysis, long after we’ve left the premises.)

Across the hall in the Stella Room, our EMF baselines were 480mG in the north end of the room, 530mG in the south, and 570mG over the bed. Again, our EchoVox suffered from a fair amount of reverberation. The only thing we clearly heard in real time was a woman’s voice saying, “Home … yes,” in response to our query asking if any spirits lived there. We could also make out the word “four” when we asked how many spirits were present. We expected an answer of five, based on the other guests’ reports, but we hardly felt disappointed!

We captured those same words again when we later analyzed the session, and when we listened to ourselves thanking the woman for her response, she said, “Okay.” At this point in our session, we’d again turned on the flashlight and asked for interaction. Nothing happened. Perhaps because a woman’s voice reported, “Problems.” We also asked her name, to which she answered “Thelma.” Then we asked if she’d died there, and she answered, “Yes.” (We found no historical records that indicated a Thelma dying on the premises.)

When we asked where the spirits were now, one man’s voice commanded, “Answer!” followed by a different man saying, “Here.” We inquired about the bones in the attic, to which a woman replied, “We’re dead.”

The audio-only recording in that room produced no later EVPs. Same thing with later video analysis.

Ethel Fairlamb Room

We concluded our investigation with sessions in the remaining Ethel Room. EMF readings fluctuated only slightly from 470-480mG throughout the room. When we again tried the flashlight experiment, the EMF rose to 610mG, but the light didn’t dim or flutter. Later in the session, our camcorder shut itself down, still with a three-quarters full battery. (More on that later.)

Puzzling, but we had no reverberations on the EchoVox like we’d experienced in the other rooms. In fact, within seconds we heard the word “bones” repeated three times. We asked whose bones, and a man’s voice said, “Wife.” 

We also heard the words “blood,” “death,” and “company.”

After we'd later analyzed our recordings, we detected the same words we had in real time, along with a number of others. During the flashlight request, a woman’s voice said, “It’s a thing – thing.” A reference to the flashlight? Right after that, another woman’s voice asked, “Who’s there? Hello?” We asked for another sign of spirit presence, and two different men repeated what the boy said earlier: “ghosts.” At the same real-time moment the camcorder shut down, we discovered later that nothing recorded on video – even though it seemed to be running. In the analysis, we found a correlation at the same time our camcorder shut down a woman’s disgusted voice announcing, “That’s it” (emphasis on “that”). The separate audio-only recording gave us no additional EVPs this time.

We may not have made contact with the original five women spirits in the house, but we certainly got a dismissal from someone!

* * *

Next week, we share highlights of our visit to the Windsor Hotel in Del Norte, CO, staking out the room where an 1880s suicide took place. That ghost still lingers.

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times. And you can subscribe to our YouTube "Ghost Hunt Findings" channel to see additional video clips from our investigations.

#GhostHunt 9 for new book: Spruce Lodge in South Fork, CO

All this fall, winter, and early spring, we're engaged in our latest book project -- haunted hotels in western and mountainous Colorado -- and we're using our blog to share highlights about our visits (and ghost hunts) to each location. You can click on the tab just under our blog banner called "New WIP Ghost Hunt Book" for more context and a bit of backstory about the project.

This week's account is at the Spruce Lodge in South Fork, CO. 

No shortage of paranormal activity in this 90-year-old building -- ghostly touches, dogs and cats reacting strongly to unseen presences, lots of invisible footsteps, multiple apparition sightings including shadow people and full-body apparitions, electrical anomalies, cold spots, moving objects, and ghostly voices plus groans, sighs, and whispers.

But first a S/O to lodge co-owner Dee Plucinski, who gave us the run of much of the main lodge.

Even though accounts also occur in the basement and ground floor of the facility, we spent most of our time in two “unoccupied” upstairs guestrooms in the original log building. That worked for us, since all the paranormal activity has taken place in the main lodge.

We performed a sweep of the hall and rooms with our EMF meter, gathering baseline readings: 515 mG in the north end of the hallway, and 460mG in the south. (EMF stands for Electromagnetic Field, and ghosts are said to manipulate this energy as a way to manifest or communicate.)The Baxterville Room ranged from 450-470mG, and the Galbreath ranged from the 330s-360s, except the wardrobe which rose to 560mG when we opened the door.

Baxterville Room

When we returned to the Baxterville Room to start our session, that door had closed – a commonly reported paranormal occurrence at the lodge. We tested the open door at various positions, but it remained stationary.

We began with an EVP session, recording our spirit box interactions, including general queries and our request to dim the flashlight we’d placed on the bed as a means of communication. Nothing happened. Lots of audio feedback and squelching sounds from the spirit box, but nothing intelligible – until we later reduced the interference and analyzed what remained.

That’s when we discovered a woman’s voice saying “we’ll see” when we asked for the flashlight dimming (in real time, the EMF meter had jumped up 90mG). Also, after asking the spirits to identify themselves, we received immediate EVP replies on the EchoVox spirit box of “Hyacinthe,” “Betty,” and “Frederick.” (EVP stands for Electronic Voice Phenomenon, sometimes occurring on audio recordings but can also be generated through a spirit box. Our EchoVox generates only random sounds -- no words -- and it's up to a spirit to assemble and create intelligible responses.) Two other words became clear when we asked who was there: “Kym,” who stood in the room, and “Dee,” the lodge owner who, at the time, worked the restaurant below us. Sometimes spirits can seem so literal! 

EVP saying "Dee"

On the recording, we also heard ourselves arguing whether or not to continue because of the squelching, followed by a woman telling us “please talk” and a different woman saying “speak.”

 EVP saying "Please talk"

Mark headed to the Galbreath Room down the hall while Kym packed up the camcorder. For a fleeting moment, she had the impression of a quill pen and inkwell on the table next to the bed. Curious, since the lodge has a reputation for revealing images from a bygone era. (Dee's husband Rob, the other owner, once saw a blonde woman wearing a teal-colored shirt and blue pants sitting on a pool table in the building’s basement. There is no pool table in that particular space, but the room did serve as a pool hall in years past.)

In the hallway, we’d noticed a mannequin wearing an old-fashioned white nightgown, parasol propped up beside it. We snapped a picture because it looked cool (more on that later).

Once in the Galbreath Room, we didn’t encounter the squelch on the spirit box, nor could we hear much else that made sense. But on request, the flashlight did dim about 25 percent, and on later analysis we found we'd captured the word “flashlight” as an EVP. 

We also detected several other words in analysis – “three” (when we’d asked how many were in the room) and “Dagwood.” And then came a final name in a voice like nothing we’d heard before, distinct and unmistakable: “DeQuin” (emphasis on the first syllable). It made no sense to us at first until we searched the Internet and discovered DeQuin is both a given and surname of European origin.

EVP saying "DeQuin"

Note position of parasol
in these two photos

As promised, back to the parasol.

After we left the Galbreath Room, we noticed the parasol now lying on the floor next to the mannequin, which stood a mere ten feet from the open guestroom door where we had worked. Neither one of us had heard it fall, nor had either of us touched the dress or parasol.

Did our footsteps jar it loose? Maybe.

Maybe not. The lodge has a recurring history of physical objects that move inexplicably.

***

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we share highlights of our visit to the Fairlamb House in Delta, CO, where previous owners used to have a skeleton (yes, literally a skeleton) in the attic.

Don't forget you can follow along during our investigations as we live-tweet from Twitter @writeinthethick. You can check out our Facebook page for updates about dates and times. And you can subscribe to our YouTube "Ghost Hunt Findings" channel to see video clips from our investigations.