Historic Haunts in Ann Arbor
When you're a paranormal investigator, walking into the unknown is half the draw. The excitement of who or what you may encounter is a thrill, to say the least.
As an investigator with DPX, I have been allowed access to some really amazing locations that many might never get to experience. It’s not always about the scariest, abandoned haunted houses. Living and investigating in a city such as Detroit, history is important. Detroit is a city that has had its fair share of violence, riots, gangs, wealth and greed. I am happy to say that Detroit is in a renaissance phase. It is vibrant and alive, and if you pay attention, you’ll see the growth all around.
Back to the history. I’d like to share a story of my personal experience in one of the many different historical locations we’ve been lucky enough to investigate.
The Kempf House is located in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan. The Kempf House Museum is a non-profit organization that offers different tours and events throughout the year. DPX was fortunate enough to privately investigate this beautiful, Greek Revival style home dating back to 1853. To say it's beautiful is an understatement.
It has been preserved very well and is full of original artifacts and items belonging to the Kempf family, including an original 1877 Steinway Concert Grand Piano. Not every location has so much available history, so for me, getting to know the history of the place before walking in is an absolute bonus.
Learning about the family, the land and the area is so fascinating. Walking into the home, I felt the energy immediately. Before the investigation even started, myself and Stephanie, the team psychic-medium, had a profound experience in the front room that houses the piano. The energy was very strong. It felt a little confusing, and then came the emotions. We both knew we were in the presence of somebody who loved that room. We both heard an audible woman’s voice trying to communicate with us. Later, we would hear that voice again.
During this investigation, I made contact with several spirits, including an aggravated man, an older woman and children. Although nothing in the home necessarily felt negative, this aggravated man was a little bothersome along with an aggravated female in an upstairs bedroom. In that room, I experienced something I had never seen. There were three of us in the upstairs room, every piece of equipment was going off and our medium told me to quickly take a picture. As I snapped the picture, with my own eyes, I saw a ball of light, about the size of a golf ball, fly from one side of the room to the other and then it was gone. WOW!!!
As a team, I think we all heard things with our own ears. Footsteps and voices. We all heard footsteps upstairs as if somebody was pacing the hallway at the top of the steps, and a couple of us heard voices calling from up there as if to get us to come upstairs. Another profound moment was when the whole team was conducting a Geobox session upstairs. We were having intelligent communication with several different spirits. What we didn’t know until later was that Pauline Kempf was there. Upon reviewing evidence, there she was. She spoke to us.
When asking the old cliche question, “What’s your name," she told us, twice. Not coming from the Geobox, there she was. “Pauline, Pauline." Listen closely with headphones to the EVP on our SoundCloud account.
It was the same voice we heard downstairs in the piano room. Incredible. Now that aggravated man, still not sure who he was, but he did follow me home and caused a little havoc in my home life for a couple of weeks. In truth, there were three of us that seemed to bring home more than memories from this investigation. Happy to say he is gone.
Of course we all investigate because we love seeking out the unknown and capturing evidence to back it up. Another fond memory of this particular investigation was the presentation for the historical society and their guests' reactions to some of the evidence that we captured.
At the end of this particular presentation, I had a group of four women come up and thank me, and they told me they hadn’t had goosebumps like that in a while. Job well done team.
