MANCHESTER — Paranormal investigators Michael Krause and Cindy Kabel have spent the past few months investigating the Cheney Homestead — and they say there are spirits present.

Timothy Cheney, a farmer, miller, and one of America’s famous clock makers, built the homestead around 1785.

Krause said he and Kabel “go into a place and try to disprove all accounts.” Their work is based on scientific evidence, he said, and they do not charge for investigations.

Cheney Family Homestead built around the late 1700s

Krause founded Eastern Connecticut Paranormal 11 years ago. He says he has been investigating for long enough that he can tell if someone is just hearing a banging pipe or floorboards shifting due to temperature changes.

That was far from what the two found at the homestead, they say. Their video camera picked up moving lights in the parlor above the bed the Cheneys used to hold wakes for their family members, Kabel said.

When the investigators asked if there was anything there, the lights would start moving in all directions, she added. In several still photos taken in the same room, beams of lights that resemble a laser pointer are seen. Though the lights are visible on camera, Krause and Kabel say they didn’t see them.

That’s because the camera is 400 times quicker than the human eye, Krause said.

In the former bedroom of Electra Woodbridge Cheney, Timothy Cheney’s daughter-in-law and mother of the Cheney brothers who founded the family’s silk mills, Krause asked if anyone was there and a voice recorder picked up what sounds like a male voice saying something like, “I am the older one.”

The voice sounds muffled and distant. Krause said he didn’t hear the voice during the investigation — only on the recording. This is known as an electronic voice phenomenon, or an EVP.

When Krause and Kabel investigate a site, there is more to it than showing up at night with a video camera. The two did about 1½ months research on the Cheney family first.

With the help of the Manchester Historical Society and Jamie Olcott, a descendent of the Cheneys who is the homestead’s caretaker, the two were able to investigate the site twice. Having been raised in Manchester, it was a “treat” doing the investigation, Krause said.

They say it took them more than 50 hours to analyze the recordings.

Krause and Kabel have been working together for the past two years and say they have bought thousands of dollars worth of equipment, such as video cameras, tape recorders, an electromagnetic field detector, and infrared night vision equipment.

“I think it’s very interesting, and I want to know more about it,” said Vivian Ferguson the town historian and chairwoman of the Cheney Brothers National Historic District Commission.

“I’ve never met a ghost, and I hope if I do, I would meet a good one,” she said.

Krause said ghosts don’t intend to hurt anyone. They do, however, want to get our attention, and in the process they can startle people, he said.

Full source: Journal Inquirer