Electronic Voice Phenomena At Bachelors Grove Cemetery

     I have almost always been a skeptic of paranormal phenomena.  This is not to say that I forgo interest in such topics.  My youth was filled with reading ghost stories and exchanging tales of creepiness in the neighborhood.  I am not saying that one should skoff at the idea of ghost or spirits, but rather one should investigate.

     In school I excelled in science and physics.  I was fortunate enough to to take mostly lab classes where we could get “hands on” in running experiments.  What I found to be really interesting was the discussions where we debated as to whether the experiments were accurately testing a hypothesis, or if we were measuring a unknown outside influence.  These discussions led to myself developing a critical way of looking at the conclusions given.

     Some twenty years ago, I became familar with the infamous Bachelors Grove Cemetery in the suburban Chicago area.  Various books, and articles, described the location as “the most haunted spot in Chicago.”  I am a area resident but the cemeteries location in suburban Midlothian necessitated a forty five minute drive from my western suburb residence to this small southern suburb. 

     My first visit was somewhat anticlimatical.  The cemetery parcel sits between an abandoned road and an newly improved four lane arterial street.  There is a long path through the woods but the noise of the road continually filled the air.  The burial area was in a shambles with overgrown grass, flowers, and many weeds.  Many monuments had been vandalized and one grave had even been partially exhumed.  Trash blew around the fenced graveyard and the largest monument was cluttered with many offerings left behind by the adherents of offbeat beliefs.

     I took many pictures but was mostly disappointed with the results.  This being the era of 35mm film, I could not take too many shots without garnering the film and processing costs. Still, I quickly learned, on subsequent visits, to take multiple shots of a subject from the same angle.  Here, my science background helped me to rapidly disprove many ghostly images.  In reviewing the photos side by side, I could easily determine that almost all the mystery images had simple explanations like shadows, or wind movement.  I still vividly recall what I thought would be the definitive proof of ghosts that turned out to be a mosaic of different colored leaves that were at the very tip of a sagging tree branch.

     With the advent of digital video and pictures, I made many more trips to this lonely piece of ground.  Significantly, I found the real fear to be the other humans who were traipsing through the area.  I shifted my main focus to video and found that many folks on the internet were interested in this particular place.  I should mention that I am very dubious of “orb” photos if they were taken using a flash.  You can experiment for yourself by taking a camera into your backyard at night.  Use the flash to take photos of anything and everything.  I will wager that you will discover many orbs!  The cause is tiny specks of dust just in front of your lens that are illuminated by the flash.  These tiny out of focus specks will appear to be orbs.

     In twenty plus years I had only witnessed two truly weird events.  One night,  I saw a couples pet dogs howl at something unseen.  The dogs were about fifteen feet apart and facing each other across a grave plot.  They were both looking at a point maybe fifteen feet off the ground and were barking and howling.  I jokingly asked the owner if he had trained the animals to do that?  He only shook his head and very quickly left the cemetery.  The other weirdness was when something was hurled at me from a spot almost directly over me.  It was not something falling as it had a velocity much higher than a object falling naturally.

     My most recent visit captured a recording that I have not been able to debunk.  There was a voice on one of the video clips that should not have been there.  When I record in the cemetery I purposely try to be there at a time when no one else is around.  On this day, my crew (also known as my long suffering, unpaid, son) was there but he knows my routine and does not speak or move while I run the camera.  The cemetery parcel is open enough for me to have a excellent view from anywhere up to a hundred feet.  Additionally, we had been there for some time and had stopped recording the few times anyone got close.

     The video will give you many chances to to determine for yourself what was recorded on the audio track.  My camera is a Sony A55, capable of both stills and video.   The video is excellent High Def.  The audio is recorded from two microphones mounted on top of the camera body.  I process the recordings through a HP PC, and edit using Live Movie Maker.  I did not hear the “voice” until I was editing and wearing headphones.

     There could be several possibilities to explain the voice as intereference.  There are two cell towers up at the main road where the cemetery path begins.  Also, not too far away, is a big radar site for Midway Airport.  This being a public Forest Preserve, the voices of other people could be “skipping” throughout the area.  Then there is always the chance that some miscreants might have set up some sort of audio prank.  In all, my own explaining away of the sound seems to lack credence. 

     For what it is worth, I had made a second video that day “Hidden History BG,” which had taken me away from the cemetery area.  Almost two hours later, as we were passing back through the area to leave, we encountered a woman who was triumphantly saying that she had captured some EVP, albeit at a different place.

     For those who want to dig even deeper, you can track a number of my older visits by checking out the G&P playlist on the video sharing channel.  Even those who do not belive in such things should find the information presented in a fairly entertaining way…….

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0w8Ytl9kzS4