results of the 30-day investigation at Hillside cemetery in state center, Iowa

For those of you who were unable to follow our 30-day investigation on a regular basis, The Night Watchman and Chris Schumacher went to the Hillside Cemetery in State Center, Iowa nearly every night for 30 days to a specifically mapped out area. We kept track of the weather, the geomagnetic field and solar rays through NOAA, and readings from our gauss meter and Infrared thermometer. We went from 8:00 p.m. to 8:10 p.m. each night. What you will find on this page are the EVP's we captured and our theories from the gathered information. You will also find, by clicking on the cameras above, the best photos from our investigation.

best evp's from the investigation

day

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EVP

Day 3

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Day 6

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Day 9

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Day 10

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Day 15

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Day 18

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Day 18

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Day 18

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Day 27

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Day 29

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Day 29

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Day 30

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     The point of this 30 Day Investigation was to test a few ideas that we had about ghost hunting. There seems to be a great deal of hype on how important it is to have the right equipment, pay attention to the weather, the solar x-rays and geomagnetic fields and lunar activity. Having been on many investigations, we truly have never had any particular results from our gauss meter or our IR thermometer, two pieces of equipment that are pushed for purchase in many places, but we still added these to our investigation process. The charts that you can link to at the top of this page will show the IR temperature readings, but we eliminated the gauss meter from the charts because not once through the whole 30 days did it ever give any indication of electromagnetic activity.
     We have gone to the Hillside Cemetery (at one time only 5 minutes from our home) on many occasions to take photos and sound, but never once did we have any kind of results until this investigation.
     We have always had a sneaking suspicion that creating a relationship is what causes spirits, orbs or other anomalies to appear in photos and to be heard on tape. This was the main purpose of our investigation. Most all investigators will go to a location once or twice to investigate, and though they may get an EVP and some photos, we wondered what would happen if they actually went for a longer period of time and attempted to build a relationship.
     So, off on our 30 Day Investigation we went. Let us tell you that it wasn't always easy after working a full day to go out for that 10 minutes nearly everyday, then come home, examine the photos and listen to the digital recorder, then load the results for that evening. Oftentimes we did not get to bed until 10 or 11 p.m. and had to be up by 6 a.m. to start the work day over again. However, we do believe that it was worth the time.
     If you go to the charts page, you will see the days that we had amazing results and the days that gave us basically nothing. We gauged the photos by excellent, fair and poor (the explanation for these choices is on the charts page). Breaking it down for you here, you can see the simple results.

     If you really examine the chart for the days that we received excellent photos and EVP's, you will see that we had quite an amazing Orb the first night out. After that, we didn't get another "excellent" Orb until Day 10. The Night Watchman refers to Day 1 as the first initial meeting handshake. After Day 10, EVP's and/or excellent photos were captured almost every night. It was almost as though we were being tested on whether or not we would really be coming back as we had stated. As we kept our promise, they seemed to gain trust and appear more often and much more visibly than in the first 10 days.
     One of the most interesting aspects of it all was the differences in the Orbs toward the last week of the investigation. We took photos of huge Orbs throughout, but toward the end, we began getting Orbs in Motion. Not just going sideways, but going upwards as well. We've had pictures of moving Orbs before, very sporadically, but this is the first time that we've ever captured Orbs moving upward and nearly every night for the last week. The photos just became better and better the more that we went. We also noticed that we had some kind of Orb (excellent, fair or poor) in a large number of photos throughout, but as we neared the end of the investigation (about the last week and a half), there were only about 6 photos out of 18 for the night that would show anything at all (with the exception of Day 29 that had nothing), but of those 6, at least 3 would be some of the best photos we'd gotten.
     Although there is much more testing to do, this 30 Day Investigation has strengthened our theory that it isn't the equipment you have with you, nor the lunar phase, weather, or geomagnetic field that gives success in photos and EVP's. We believe that it is building a relationship.
     If you go out for the first time and capture an amazing photo, you might think of it as sheer chance, especially if you go out again several times to the same location and get nothing of worth in your photos. However, we believe that this first amazing photo is an initial "How Do You Do" handshake and the beginning of building a relationship with the being that appeared for you. It is then up to you whether you wish to follow up on this relationship, which takes effort on your part as does any relationship you have.
     We plan to continue testing our theory by setting up another 30 Day Investigation in the same location. This time, however, we are going to attempt to get a bit more personal. The Night Watchman will be in the photos this time, attempting a more personal contact with the beings/spirits/orbs that are there. We hope that you will join us on this 2nd 30 Day Investigation as we will again post our results on our website. You can find these under "Investigation 2."