Adam's Ribs Investigation

Location: Prince Frederick, Maryland

Date:  March 23, 2003

Moon Phase:  Solar flares active, geomagnetic storm

Solar Weather:  Waning Gibbous

Investigators present: Hillary M., Paul M, and Robert H.

Equipment: Olympus C-3000 digital camera, RCA digital voice recorder, Sony digital video camera with Nightshot, Extech EMF meter, Olympus 2000 Digital Voice Recorder, Sony Digital-8 Handycam, Extech IR thermometer, Olympus C-4000 Digital Camera, Trifield EMF meter

History:  

The log cabin style building was built in 1955 and was known as Rustic Farms Restaurant in 1980.   The owners of the restaurant, Nancy and Douglas Schwab,  lived either on the premises or in a structure behind the restaurant.   News reports from 1980 have conflicting descriptions about how the property was divided among living and restaurant quarters.   Based on news reports in the Calvert Independent (click here to view the text of the news articles), the Schwab's were having marital difficulties in March of 1980.    On March 5th at approximately 6:45 pm, Douglas Schwab left the restaurant to talk to his wife.   He returned and informed the people in the restaurant that he had shot his wife Nancy.   Douglas was arrested minutes later driving down the highway.    Nancy Schwab died on the scene of a gunshot wound in the head.    Douglass, who was in poor health, was convicted and sentenced to 20 years in prison for the murder of his wife.

The restaurant was sold several times and in 1996, became known as Adam's Ribs.   Employees report a number of odd occurrences, which they blame on Nancy.    Some of the female employees have reported hearing their names being called.   One employee said she opened the door with the wrong key and when she came back she couldn't lock the door because the key wouldn't turn, and yet the same key had opened the door initially.   Patrons have reported sighting Nancy at the bar.   The night manager said he sometimes feels a presence.

Investigation: 

The investigation began around 9 p.m. as the restaurant was closing.   We set up our equipment and spoke to the employees about their experiences.   While the staff closed the restaurant, the team took baseline readings for temperature and EMF.    The temperatures were fairly consistent throughout the building, but the EMF meter behaved oddly in the front room and in the room in the rear of the restaurant.  The meter was in the sum position (electrical + magnetic readings).   The meter was placed on a table and would spike from normal background readings of 2 all the way up to 100, at approximately 1 second intervals.   The activity would last for a few minutes, and then the readings would return to the background level of 2.  The same phenomena occurred in the back room, and again, the spiking stopped after a few minutes.

A number of orb pictures were taken and Robert's camera malfunctioned twice in the back room and once in the front room; at the bar, the camera flashed too quickly after the button was pressed.

At 10:25 p.m., Hillary set up her video camera in the back room, pointing into the bar. While she was setting up the camera, she heard a noise behind the bar that we could not identify. In all fairness though, there are several things behind the bar (ice machine, refrigerator, etc) that make strange noises, so we cannot conclude that the noise was paranormal in nature.  After the camera was set up, we moved into the front dining room for an EVP session.  Ten minutes and fifty seconds into the session, Hillary heard a fairly loud groan from Robert’s direction.  Neither he nor Paul heard it, and the sound was not recorded on our recorders. A few minutes later, Robert asked if Nancy was protecting the girls who worked there. Suddenly, Hillary got the strong impression that the answer to that question was yes. 

At 10:40, Hillary left her recorder in the front room, and we all went back to the smoking area. One minute and nineteen second into the recording, Hillary got a high-pitched EVP.  

At 11:00, Robert and Paul went into the back room. Hillary went to the bar area alone and began softly speaking to Nancy. At six minutes and twenty seconds into the recording session, Hillary heard a “whoosh” sound very close to her left ear, like something was whizzing past her head.  We ended the investigation soon after.

Conclusion:  

While we definitely cannot say that Adam's Ribs is haunted, we obtained some documentation of paranormal activity, such as the spikes in the EMF meter in the front and back rooms of the restaurant.    We can definitely recommend the ribs at Adams...the ribs alone are worth the visit.    And if something unusual happens, you will know the inside joke when someone on staff says Nancy did it! 

We would like to thank the owner,  management and staff of Adam's Ribs for allowing us to investigate the restaurant.

Submitted by Robert Hall