Location: Swope Mansion, Gettysburg, PA.

Date: Friday night, June 18, 2004 – 4:00pm to 5:30 pm; 11 pm - midnight

Moon Phase:  Unknown

Solar Weather: Unknown

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

Equipment: Olympus C-3000 digital camera,  RCA digital voice recorder, Sony digital video camera with Nightshot, Pentax PC-550 35mm camera, Extech EMF meter, Olympus 2000 Digital Voice Recorder, Extech IR thermometer,Olympus C-4000 Digital Camera, Trifield EMF meter.

The Swope House was built in 1836 by by George Swope, one of Gettysburg's wealthiest citizens at the time of the Civil War and the Battle of Gettysburg.  During the Battle of Gettysburg, Lt. William H. Pohlman from Borneo, was injured on the battlefield and like many other soldiers at the time was sent to the Swope House to recover. Unfortunately, he died in the home. Over the years, this house has been used for many purposes including residential housing, apartments, offices, and even a doctor's office. The Historic Swope House was purchased by Dorothy Ralson and her husband in June 2001. The new owners decided to convert the entire house to a residential status, with major structural changes made to bring the house up to date. The house is quite large, occupying approximately 8,700 square feet of livable space and is ideally suited for use as a B&B. Much of the original house remains, including the original pine flooring on all three floors; the exterior is basically unchanged. The Swope House has approximately 8,700 square feet of livable space. Today the nine bedrooms, five full baths and two half baths, library, sitting room, living room, kitchen and carriage house provide plenty of spacious room for  the Ralson Family and their guests.

Dorothy reports that various unusual events have occurred in the house. A plumber reported seeing a tall column of smoke in the basement- he immediately left the premises and would not return for a year afterwards. In the same spot some time later, a child reported that he was being "watched".  The current and previous homeowners have reported hearing footsteps and crashing noises throughout the house, but nothing is out of place when the noises are investigated.  One visitor to the house reported feeling a daunting presence in the library. Another guest was awakened in the night by a more current day apparition kneeling beside her bed.  Dorothy has witnessed unexplained voices and apparitions throughout the house as well.

Investigation:

Robert arrived at 4 pm and Dorothy took him for a tour of the property. One of the first places they visited was the library, and Robert had a strong feeling about sexual improprieties in this room. Dorothy confirmed that a former owner, Dr. LeFever, had been accused of improper conduct with a female patient. (Additional research confirmed these facts, click here for newspaper accounts). The second floor of the carriage house was also an area of the house that had a heavy feel to it. Hillary and Paul arrived near the end of the tour, and we talked with the Dorothy in the kitchen area of the house. After the tour, we agreed to begin our investigation later that night; we parted company to have dinner and to investigate a few other places around town, including the battlefield.  

We began the investigation at 11 pm, on the second floor of the carriage house and Hillary captured an orb moving between Paul and Robert. (Unfortunately, the video from this time period will NOT play on the camcorder, although we did replay the footage while we were onsite at the investigation; the tape locked and has become unusable). After the orb was captured, the activity waned and we left the area. We moved to the library, which used to be Dr. LeFever's office. Robert felt some sort of presence and thought that it was angry and somehow trying to communicate with him.  No evidence was obtained during this part of the investigation.  Next we moved to the upstairs bedrooms and investigated the room with the kneeling apparition had been seen in the past. We concluded the mini-investigation a little after midnight, with a keen interest for a full scale investigation.

Conclusion:

We feel the Swope Mansion deserves a full-scale investigation based on the evidence we obtained, including the moving orb in the carriage house and in the upstairs bedroom, along with the strange feelings that Robert had in the library, including his impression that improprieties occurred in the library (later corroborated by news accounts).

We would like to thank Dorothy and her family for opening their home to our investigation and we look forward to a full scale investigation in the future!

Submitted by Robert Hall