Sybil Howe Residence Investigation

Location: Waterboro, Maine
Date: December 11, 2009

History

Not much is known about the exact history of the residence, more information is available about the land though. The land in Waterboro, ME was once a part of a tribe of Indians who, by natural disaster and wars with the British, were killed off and buried in mass unmarked graves throughout the land surrounding the property. There have been reports of previous residents including an elderly lady who was "not all there".

In the 40’s in 50’s, according to Sybil (and possibly years before this) there was a lot of satanic and ritualistic activity on the property in the woods behind the building. There are also reports of a man who was a neighbor that would take neighbor’s pets (specifically dogs) to the residence and would perform a ritualistic slaughter of the animals and then bury them behind the house in the woods.

A recent investigation by the Penn State Paranormal Research Society (stars of the TV show Paranormal State) unearthed the corpse of a dog which was believed to have been slaughtered in a ritualistic fashion. They also unearthed a grave of a Margaret in the woods. Upon talking with Sybil, she stated that she advised the producers of A&E that this was just a marker of remembrance of a family member and not an actual grave. She advised them that they should not include that part in the show, however, it was a part of the show.

The episode is titled "Pet Cemetery". It was also noted that animals refused to enter the house specifically dogs and previous residents’ pets would be killed either due to natural causes or by being hit crossing the road very soon after moving in. the dogs crossing the road seemed to be in almost a trance and oblivious to any oncoming cars that were in the road and would walk out there as opposed to running across the road.

Investigation Procedures

It was a bitter 18 degrees with 30 mph winds that night however; we had 6 IR DVR cameras placed throughout the house. One was from the living room floor pointing toward the dining room. Two were on opposite sides of the outside deck pointing towards the woods. One was in the dining room pointing towards the front part of the house towards the right side living room wall. One was on the floor upstairs in the finished attic pointing across the attic. And the final one was in the cellar pointing towards the crawl space. We also had two Hi-8 cameras in the "purple" room upstairs in the attic one in each crawl space. There was a Mini-DV camera in the attic pointing towards a blocked off portion of an attic due to a wall. Two teams were used one had an HD Camcorder and the other team used a Mini-DVD Camcorder to document the investigators.

The reports were of a woman in period dress appearing to people in the living room by the right wall adjacent to the front door. The sounds of animals and barking panting throughout the house, the apparition of an older man with a very surly look about his face appearing in the attic, a little girl seeing the apparition of a dog that apparently could speak and the "purple" room door being closed on sheriffs dept. officials and locking on them. The final report was a recent one and that was of a boy seen in the shed through a mirror. The boy seemed to be a member of a family who was killed in the early 1900's within weeks of other family members passing.

Activity seemed to happen as soon as we got there. During the setup of the residence we heard a dog panting, as if happy to see us, as soon as we walked upstairs. This was heard by both Tracy and Ashley. While waiting for Ashley and Tracy to return from the store to get a shovel, so we could dig a path to the shed, Brian, Scott, Katie and Nick all heard 5 notes playing almost like a wind chime blowing in the wind. The four of us were in different parts of the house and all asked if each other heard it. We asked Sybil if there were any wind chimes outside that could have made the sound she said there wasn't and we confirmed by walking around the residence. Unfortunately these two events (dog panting and wind chime sounds) all occurred while we were getting our equipment in the house so neither were recorded but it was a great start with personal experiences.

We had two groups of three go into the cellar room however no EVP's, apparitions or emf spikes. Absolutely nothing was experienced on the IR DVR camera at all either. The cellar had absolutely no activity.

Both teams had taken turns also doing an EVP/K-II/EMF session in the shed. The K-II Meter during an early run through of the shed actually led to some spikes on a photo album and only on a certain picture as well. During the investigation however the K-II meter was a solid green the whole night for both teams that went out there. Our EMF detectors as well were solid 0's. This is of importance for what occurs later in the day.

We performed a K-II/EVP/EMF in the attic and the "purple" room. We had a few minor spikes on the EMF detector but nothing substantial. Overall absolutely no substantial activity was recorded on any equipment in this room. We are still trying to isolate these possible EVP's they sound like someone with a southern accent. We still are looking to see if it was anyone in the group but so far we have not proven nor disproved this theory.

We slept in the house that night and nothing occurred during the evening and nothing panned out in evidence review. The next day though we noticed that most of the claims were occurring during the day and we had some time before we had to leave so Tracy and Nick decided to do one more K-II session in the shed. Again it was a solid green light so we sat it down on a cushion and began to ask questions. With multiple reports of different spirits on the property we asked if the spirit was anyone in particular and after 15 minutes of questions something finally happened. Tracy asked "Are you the evil guy who murdered dogs on the property?" All of a sudden the K-II meter spiked in response to that question multiple times. After that we stayed and questioned more for another 15 minutes and it was a solid green. (The shed had no power at all.)

Evidence

After reviewing the digital voice recorders we were not able to come up with any conclusive evidence to date.

A picture of the house outside produced a very strange image of what seems like a women dressed in a Victorian era dress. We had our photo analyst Scott look at this further and he tested for depth and the test proved to show there was no depth to the image at all. This showed it was not a reflection of a person or the image of someone behind the window. Also there were no bushes, shrubbery or trees that could have caused a reflection as well. It was a very interesting picture which was taken during the day.

We did not have any other substantial evidence besides the one K-II hit.

Conclusion

Minimal paranormal activity. Suggest future groups investigate during the day as well.

Final Thoughts

This place was a weird one all activity that occurred happened during the day and the evening was very quiet. Overall the team agrees that while some spirits may be lingering around there is not enough evidence to support a full fledged haunting nor is there any significant paranormal activity occurring in the evening. If anyone else investigates this place we would recommend investigating during the day as well.