Group seeks evidence of paranormal activity
By James Card
Waupaca attained pop culture fame when an actor in the television series “Stranger Things” wore a T-shirt of a leaping whitetail buck with the words: Waupaca, Wis.
The now-trendy T-shirt can be purchased online from a variety of purveyors. The show takes place in small-town Indiana and a group of young friends experience unexplainable supernatural forces.
Waupaca County, however, has stranger things of its own. Recently at the Hotel Fremont, the Waupaca County Post sat down with Eddie Holland and Dan Halase of Paper Valley Paranormal (PVP). They have investigated numerous sites in the Waupaca area that have evidence of supernatural activity.
They do not use seances, mediums or psychics. They are technology-driven investigators and they want the hardest evidence they can record. This is to show proof to the people they are trying to help.
They conduct their investigations at no charge and people contact them to make sense of things that cannot be easily explained.
Their evidence takes two forms: audio and visual. They use digital voice recorders to capture voices and sounds that cannot be heard by the human ear. Later they play back hours of audio on a computer to discover electronic voice phenomena (EVP) that nobody heard in person.
Their visual evidence is derived from digital cameras, thermal cameras, SLS cameras and trail cameras of the kind that hunters use.
The SLS (structured light sensor) camera uses an infrared light projector with a sensor that shows activity in a 3D form by placing connected dots upon the movement. This often reveals human-like stick figures that would have never been seen otherwise.
In Waupaca County
In New London, they investigated an older two-story duplex. They recorded some EVPs in the master bedroom – noises and voices. When they entered the bedroom, it became quiet. When they left, it started up again.
At a farmhouse outside of Weyauwega, the owners contacted PVP because dishes and silverware were thrown around in the kitchen with no explanation.
“We didn’t see anything like that but there was something small and white running around in the yard in the dark. We would just get glimpses of it. They didn’t have any animals on the farm. All they had was a black dog. There were a ton of EVPs in that place, too,” said Halase.
He said they were voices of more than two people.
In Waupaca there was a real nightmare on Elm Street. Elm Street runs from the foundry, along the millpond and connects with State Highway 49.
Here they used a spirit box, a radio-like device that generates white noise that coaxes spirits to communicate.
“We caught a lot of EVPs over the spirit box. They would respond to the owner of the house. Freddie’s name came up. On Elm Street. That was her grandfather’s name. He answered a couple questions,” said Holland.
On the outskirts of Clintonville, a man called them about strange happenings in his farmhouse. He said the landing at the top of the stairway was the nexus of the activity.
They set up a rem pod, a device that radiates its own magnetic field. When activated by passing activity, LED lights turn on. They aimed the SLS camera at the rem pod.
“The rem pod starts going off and on the SLS camera we get a little figure dancing around it,” said Holland.
“A little three-foot figure the size of a kid,” said Halase. “While we were up there, there were a lot of noises and banging on the stairwell. This was freaking this guy out. All this banging and running around at night after he’d gone to bed. That was the reason for him calling us.”
The owner said his wedding ring disappeared from his upstairs nightstand and reappeared days later downstairs. Teddy bears were moved around to different places. Atop of the landing there was a hutch and its doors slammed shut all the time.
PVP called a friend, a Christian spiritualist, to do a house cleanse. Sage and palo santo wood were burned throughout the house and smoke was pushed towards the front door. Prayers and blessings were recited. Salt was placed around the exterior. The spirit never returned to the Clintonville house.
Around Waupaca
At Still Wally’s Still in Dale, they discovered the sound of whistles.
“It shares the building with the fire department. Between the fire department and the dining room, is a big opening. We would do a session in the dining room and we could hear whistles in the fire department area. We would walk back there and nobody is there,” said Halase.
They captured a white mist passing through the basement.
“What makes it interesting is our coffin box. It’s a music box with a motion sensor on the end of it. If anything moves in front of it, it will start playing music. That went off right after the mist passed by the camera,” said Holland.
An investigation at the Berlin Tannery revealed a ghost child. A guest on a tour captured a photo of her.
“It was a little girl in a colonial-type outfit. This little girl is about 10 years old. There are a few pictures of her floating around. The owner of the tannery has a picture of her on his bulletin board,” said Halase.
On an audio recorder, they captured her saying, “Hey guys.” Holland pointed out no children were present.
At the Saxeville Elementary School they captured EVPs of school children singing “Ring Around the Rosie.”
“The sound of the merry-go-round, the creaking sound, was also in it. Like the kids were on the merry-go-round and singing it. That was cool and it was really clear,” said Halase.
There merry-g-round is still there. So is the old outhouse.
“During the investigation, my wife used it. She jumps up freaking out. She felt something tickle her butt. She thought it was a bee. It was nothing,” said Holland.
From the private owner, they learned the school children would take a long blade of grass, slide it through the board gaps and tickle their teacher’s bottom.
Paper Valley Paranormal first formed in 2017 with four veterans. Holland is the founder and served in the Army. When he was stationed in Mannheim, Germany his WWII-era barracks still had bullet holes and swastika signs.
One night, he took a shower alone in a locker-room style open shower.
“The showerheads came on one-by-one. I looked down and I’m watching the handles turn. That creeped me out and got me interested,” he said.
They currently have eight members. Their investigations are free but they also run a paid tour once per year at the Heritage Hill State Historical Park in Allouez. This helps fund their other investigations throughout the state and the country. They can be contacted at www.papervalleyparanormal.net.