First Investigation

4-17-08. First Investigation. Tonight, Chris Meadows and I, head out to an old abandoned train tunnel in Rockcastle County, Kentucky. We figured this would be a great place to start. We will not be in someone's home or having someone look over our shoulder as we do our first investigation together as SHOK, so no pressure. But it should still be some good experience and should let us get to know our equipment better and I have always wanted to go back. By going back, I mean I used to go here all the time as a teenager, good place to go and party or be alone with you know who and it still might be now, not sure though, but all those good times there ended at least for me about 15 years ago.

This is where I had my paranormal experience and my only experience so far. It might not even be a paranormal event, but it did scare the hell out of the person that was with me. We was sitting there parked in the car and she started freaking out, saying she was seeing skulls and faces in the rocks in the front of the tunnel through the windshield. I looked and I kept looking, but I didn't see anything. She said she wanted to leave, so I tried to start the car, the car wouldn't start, but the tape player started playing. But it sounded like it was playing backwards or something. I turned the key in the off position and took the keys out of the ignition and the tape player in the car kept playing for at least a minute as my eyes were wide open in awe. I tried to start the car again after the tape player quit but no luck. So I went out and readjusted and tightened the battery cables. I get back in the car and the car started right up and we drove off, fast away. It might not of been anything but a surge or something, but the tape player never worked again after that.

I never went back until 5 years later. It was me, Chris Meadows and John O'Neal, we was out driving around, John was talking about a haunted abandoned train tunnel in Paint Lick, KY. We went there and nothing happened, so this place sprang to mind. We went there, and Chris Meadows got scared and yelled something when he opened the car door, we all laughed, thinking he was freaking out over nothing and then I opened the car door to get out and this big dog jumped up in my lap and scared me to death, then they all laughed at me. Well at least I knew what scared Meadows. I don't remember much after this, but we did go in the tunnel. The dog followed us but then the dog stopped and started barking at something as John and I were halfway in the half mile tunnel. I think I remember a loud bang and a "Dude Run!" and we hurried back to the truck only not able to get in, cause the doors were locked, Meadows had the keys to my truck and he didn't really know how to unlock the doors to it. But we finally get unlocked and got in and drove off. So now it is 10 years later and I am eager to get back and do some real investigating.

Actual Facts. The train tunnel was built before 1868, not sure exactly when and we are not sure exactly when the trains quit using this tunnel. What we hear is that this tunnel had wooden railroad ties and they switched to using concrete railroad ties. Instead of stopping the railroad and shutting down, they just built another train track and tunnel beside this one with the concrete railroad ties. Then after that was finished , they came back and dug up the old ties and tracks. For a long time, you could actually drive all the way through the tunnel in a car, but now the entrances are blocked on both ends.

The Investigation. Chris Meadows and I arrived at the train tunnel around 9pm. It was April 17th, 2008 and coincidentally it was 3 days before a full moon, according to Chuck Starr the best time to go ghost hunting is 3 days before or after a full moon and between 1am to 4am or even 1pm to 4pm. Well we did have half of it going for us, I guess. We started unloading and getting ready and I wanted a pic of the outside of the tunnel for this website. I took one picture and it didn't really come out that well, so I decided to take another one, well the camera died, no battery life whatsoever. I had meant to charge the camera before this day, but I forgot. I did have half life on the battery before we left and figured it would be enough, but I guess not.

There is a theory that ghosts or spirits need energy in order to manifest themselves and will drain whatever energy they can get a hold of in order to appear or do something, basically they don't have enough energy on their own and will seek other sources of energy like batteries for instance. I am not saying this is what happened, but keep this theory in mind. So I finally give up on the digital camera and get out the camcorder. Well then in a matter of a minute, the camcorder went to around a 1000 minutes of time remaining to 800, I have an awesome camcorder battery, by the way, but that was a drain.

The two main paranormal happenings I have read and heard about in so called haunted train tunnels is battery drain, which we seemed to be getting and ghost trains. The theory behind the "ghost trains" is that is a residual haunting, meaning it is like a tape recorder playing an event over and over, also the event plays out or goes on and isn't aware of its surroundings. It doesn't care whether you are there are not, kind of like watching a TV show, you really can't change how the show is going to happen. So an event happens and somehow it gets recorded and then sometime later it would play out, so the theory goes anyway. Also ghost trains would make sense in an old train tunnel that used to have probably a thousand trains go through it. Anyway I could see this event getting recording. Well it appeared we may have seen some of the battery drain issues so far.

We finally get everything ready and start to go in. I leave my camcorder on a rock trying to record the entrance of the tunnel. But I am recording audio the whole time on my way in. I also take in an EMF meter, to get some EMF readings. I hate to do it, but in case you don't know, EMF stands for Electro Magnetic Field. Basically everything electrical and even humans give off some kind of EMF and the theory goes that spirits or ghost will disrupt this and you can read this disruption with a meter. So say you get a reading of 0.0 most of the time or somewhere close to that and then suddenly you get a 3.5, something is causing this. Is this a ghost or spirit? Maybe, but it could be something explained scientifically, too, causing this spike on the meter. Also places of high EMF can make people sick, can cause skin irritation, make people paranoid and give off a creepy feeling like the peson is being watched or someone is there with them. I use it as well as most ghost hunters, because if we do get a spike, then you would know to be on alert for something paranormal and just to check if the area is in high in EMF all the time. But anyway, we make it in kind of slow, a lot of rocks, water and obstacles to go around. We made it in about 1/4 of the way, when Meadows' camcorder screen goes out and I believe then right after that the camcorder goes out completely. Battery drain again, maybe? He got it going anyway and we go on. The EMF meter kept saying 0.0 the whole way in.

We did feel some cold spots, but we are underground in a tunnel, of course it is going to be cold. But sometimes it would get colder than other places, like when the camcorder died. We have no actual temperature data since we don't have a good infrared thermometer, yet. So we have to throw out the idea of cold spots out, since it us just feeling them and not a gauge on equipment saying how cold it is getting. Theory on cold spots is that it could be spirits or ghosts sucking out the heat of the area, thus creating a spot, usually about the size of a human or slightly bigger that is colder than the rest of the area. A infrared thermometer can record these temperature drops very well.

We get to almost middle of the tunnel and decide to turn all of our flashlights out and do some EVP work. I really hate to do this, but in case you don't know, EVP is Electronic Voice Phenomena, which is voices that can't be heard with the human ear but for some reason can get recorded on an audio recorder and then played back and heard then. So Meadows and I, are "lights out", asking the standard EVP questions. Is anybody here with us? What is your name? and so on. We did ask if you can make a noise for us and did get a noise of some kind, like a rock falling in the tunnel and hitting the rock floor. We kept asking can you do more and got more.

We heard a sound at the far end of the tunnel like a train sound, like wheels squeaking, that kept getting louder and closer. Being in total darkness we had no idea what was going on. Finally, it sounds like it passes over or through us and Meadows turns on his flashlight and says he got a glimpse of a bat and we figure that was the sound we heard. It also could of been a train in the next door tunnel that was making the sound and the bat was coincidentally going through about the same time. Whatever it was making the sound, I could see someone mistaken this event for a ghost train though and maybe it was, but I am not yet convinced of it and would need more proof. It isn't ruled out or dare I say debunked, but Meadows hopefully got the event on the camcorder and I do have audio of the whole thing. So we'll let the evidence speak later.

We also noticed that the far end of the tunnel the light was changing. You could see light on both ends of the tunnel, but on the far end the light would get bright and then dark, kind of like someone was walking by it and blocking out the incoming light. We didn't know what it was and we probably should have checked it out further, but I had left my camcorder on a rock at the entrance of the tunnel and I started getting worried about it, so we decided to go out for a bit, plus it would have been a long walk to the other end. Still no EMF readings of any kind, all 0.0.

At the front of the tunnel, I tried to get some better shots of the entrance with the camcorder with no luck, I don't have enough infrared light for the night vision to pick up. We do more EVP work and decide to pack it up and drive around to the far end of the tunnel. More EMF readings of 0.0 at the front of the tunnel.

At the far end of the tunnel, there is no place to park, so there is no going in on this side. But we do notice that a huge pile of dirt has been put on this end of the tunnel to probably block the entrance. This pile of dirt has been here for a long time, also, it has trees growing out of it. Back in the day you could drive all the way through the tunnel, not anymore. Meadows figured out the light changing on this end though. Every time the wind would blow, trees would move in the front of this entrance and block the incoming light. Exactly what we was seeing in the middle of the tunnel, so that was "Debunked!".

We turn around and go back to the other end of the tunnel, park and decide to go back in. We go a little further in this time than we had went before. We kept hearing a whipporwill sound on the way in, that'll be great for EVPs I was thinking. On in, we did see a big bat like creature, I think it was an owl, way too big to be a bat. That scared us a little has it flew out of a rock overhang that we was shining our light on. This was probably the same creature we seen and heard earlier. We also kept feeling the cold spots in the tunnel, some places seemed warmer and then colder in other places in the tunnel. But we knew we couldn't go on feelings. On in, we go completely lights out again and again do more EVP questioning. We also asked "Can you make a noise for us?", again. And again got some noises. My guess, we was 3 out of 6 for getting noises made. We probably asked 6 times and 3 times we got a noise. Coincidence? Sure, it could be, it is hard to really say.

After this we decide to wrap it up and call it a night. It was getting late and we had a lot of evidence to go over. Not really late or a lot of evidence, but I had to type it in anyway, sorry couldn't resist. Nothing really happened on the way out. We packed everything and left. So hopefully over the next couple of days we can go over the evidence (still couldn't resist) and see what we can find and get it up on this website for everybody to go over.

Overall, it was a really good trip. There wasn't a real eerie or creepy feeling or any feelings of someone watching over us. But again SHOK doesn't go on feelings. We did have some personal experiences, but they all probably could be explained by something scientifically. Like we did get a little scared over the flying creature that probably made the ghost train effect and we did have a lot of luck asking for noises and getting noises made and we thought we felt cold spots. But we didn't get any EMF readings of any kind, all 0.0's. So we'll just see what the evidence holds, which isn't a lot, but hopefully I can go through that and get up the good stuff soon, if there is any. No matter what the evidence shows, I would love to go back, if nothing else, I would be able to get some pics for the website since the digital camera died on me early.

The Evidence. Well we didn't have any pictures to go over, the digital camera died early. I did go back out last week and take some during the day, which are the ones you are seeing on the website, nothing special or haunted with those though. My camcorder didn't yield anything paranormal or unexplainable either, so none of that evidence will be presented here either. Chris Meadows is still going over his tape that he got on his camcorder, so if he finds anything that will be presented later. I did pickup I believe 2 EVPs from the investigation on the audio recorder. The first one happened when we first went into the tunnel, about a quarter way through, when Meadows' camcorder died and came back on. In the EVP you hear a beep, that is the camcorder coming back on and then you hear the EVP.

Tunnel 1st EVP

The second EVP comes when we are in the van and arrive at the other end of the tunnel. We are talking of this entrance being blocked and before that, of the house at the end of the road with the windows of the van down.

Tunnel 2nd EVP

My opinion, the first one sounds like someone is saying "Help me!", really stretched out and like their scared. I think this is an actual EVP. The words are clear and it is not me or meadows making this sound and I don't know anything that would make this sound. I could see this also being said by say a ghost or spirit in a train tunnel. The second one, in my opinion, sounds like it is being said 3 times, the first 2 is over Meadows and I talking and then we get quiet and I hear, " It's a firehouse". The voice is not ours by any means, but it could be something out in the woods making this sound, like some kind of animal. I am not really sure. The camcorder was left recording at this time and it did pick up something comparable to this sound. So can EVPs be picked up on different recording devices in close proximity? I would think so, but I can't say I am the expert on it. So it is being added here, because this sound is unexplainable, it could be an EVP. I am going to try to go back and see if I can hear the sound without the recorders and if I can, then that would make it not an EVP, maybe a VP, but not electronic, anyway. If it is an EVP, then why is it saying, " It's a firehouse", 3 times, unless maybe the house we was speaking of was a firehouse at one time, I have no clue.

There is almost another EVP, but we can't make it out. Meadows and I are talking and you can't hear it real clear for us. It to me, sounds almost like a CB or walkie-talkie or something, with the static and the way the voice sounds. There was no CB or walkie-talkie anywhere, though. This file will be added to the forums for team members only, until we can decide what it is. It will probably end up being nothing. The weird thing though is that we are driving back from the back entrance to the front entrance. So we are in the van and are talking about the train tunnel, when the maybe EVP occurs.

I did have the audio on when the bat, owl, ghost train or whatever came through. According to the audio, it definitely sounds like an animal, I am guessing owl. The whooping around, sounds like the animal, but really it was the audio recorder whooping around from me being ducking down. Here is the audio. At the time, also, it sounded more train like, not so much, after playing back the audio, though.

Tunnel Owl Sound

Well that is really about it unless, Meadows comes up with something with his camcorder or audio. I might add some of the actual daylight pics here later.

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