Well we made it through one of our busiest months ever. We were in Forest City every Friday and Saturday night, had 2 private investigations, 2 investigations with a local radio station, and also did a presentation at the library. We have some good things we are working on for November also, one of them being an investigation that includes 4 of the oldest buildings in Peoria. Unlike some other local groups, we investigate year round. We do this to help people in need, not to get a rush because we are bored.

Time to say goodbye

  On September 1st we are saying goodbye to two old friends. The Pekin Times Building and The Regent Broadcasting Radio Building. They were bought by Tazewell County and will be demolished to create parking lots. We have had the honor of investigating both properties, several times actually.
   The Times Building is a beautiful building with lots of history. You can read about some of it here.  We are still reviewing our audio and video from our visits, but guests that we have taken with us have said they have reviewed theirs and have some voices. Even if we don't get anything on our recordings it was a great experience and loved the opportunity to investigate the building.
  The Regent Building doesn't have much history, but something is still there. We were turned onto this little gem from a tip we received while shopping for a new digital camera. While trying to gain access we were told about some of the odd things that had happened there, including stories from people who would record commercials to be played on the radio only to have unknown voices on them during playback. We investigated the building three times and a video we did with a local radio station can be seen here.
   We are not sure when these buildings will be torn down, but have heard that they want to start immediately. It is a shame that they have to come down but they will always be remembered.

We are going to meet a few groups tonight at the Skinner house in Forest City to show them where we get the most activity when we investigate there. It will be interesting to find out if they get any recordings. We are also excited to meet these groups. It is nice to associate with other groups that try to find the cause of things instead of jumping to an “it’s paranormal” conclusion.

     We also have a private residence investigation this weekend and at the end of the month we have access to a historic building for a week. Going to be doing plenty of experimenting and using equipment that we normally don’t.

Paranormal Experience

I got into paranormal investigating not even sure if any of this was actually real. I had always liked the paranormal but had never had any experiences. We would go to locations and investigate and get some good audio, but I never had any personal experiences. Until Forest City. We had gone out there to investigate one location but were told about another when we arrived. The plan was to concentrate on the original location this trip and schedule the other location for another time. Those plans changed when the workers at the other location came to us and started telling us all of their experiences. We quickly packed up and headed to the other house. After a brief tour and a quick set up, we started our investigation. Another investigator and I decided we would go first and start in the basement. We didn't have to wait long for things to start happening. While sitting in the dark we heard what sounded like some plastic that was hanging up down there being moved. This can been seen at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu3pcNGCbO0&list=UUCfYY_JS_P29UAnpGtRYpMA&index=6&feature=plcp There was no wind and it was hot as fire down there. Remember that it was pitch black and we could not see where this noise had come from, we only knew where to go after the crew watching the DVR told us. Looking back we should have immediately went and investigated the noise. Instead we sat and asked more questions. Finally after 10 minutes we decided to go look. When we got up to the plastic we looked behind it through the gap that was between it and the wall. Sitting on the ground was a ball that was spinning and hopping on it's own. If the ball had been the cause of the plastic moving it would not have still been moving after the amount of time we waited. We did not have the camcorder with us, which I still kick myself for to this very day. So no proof, just a personal experience that I and the other investigator shared.



Rob Depew

Happy Mother's Day!

Happy Mother's Day from everyone at Illinois Ghost Seekers Society!!!

Efforts to save the Bowen take a step in the right direction

So we got the news last night that the village of Bartonville has finally agreed to use their TIF funds to help with the abatement of the Bowen building. We would like to congratulate Richard Weiss and his volunteers in this first big step forward. There is still a lot of work to be done and they can't do it alone. To see what you can do to help with this big project visit http://www.peoria-asylum.com/ .

What is Pareidolia?

Have you ever seen a faceor apparition in a photograph? Is it a ghost in the woods? A face in a window? How about a ghostly figure in a cemetery?

99.9999999% of the time this is called PAREIDOLIA. It is not paranormal. The human mind is programmed to find faces, and sometimes human figures, in an abstract scene such as a picture of a cemetery, woods, windows, and more to make the brain process what it is seeing
in such pictures. If you saw a bunny in the clouds would you truly insist it is a real bunny? No. That's how the brain plays tricks on you. But clouds are much more explainable than a photo with a good story.

Before jumping in and saying WOW look at that ghost; stop and think first. People will try their hardest to get you to believe anything. We find that even many paranormal groups out there also over analyze their photos. Then they manipulate the photo more and more in a photo program trying to make sense of nothing. If you have to work that hard to find the ghost in your photo then it’s not real. Let it go and move on for more definitive proof!

Here is a Wikipedia definition of Pareidolia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia