Zane Trace Guest House Investigation Report

Note: Although PRSNA does not usually use psychics in our investigations, we did invite a "sensitive", Marcia, to this investigation just to see what her impressions might be. Although we cannot prove her abilities, Scott Snider was quite puzzled and somewhat amazed with the personal impressions that she picked up on with him.

Location: Somerset, Ohio

Date: Friday-Saturday, November 1-2, 2002

Moon Phase: New

Solar Weather: M Class solar flares, geomagnetic field unsettled, geomagnetic storm two days prior

Investigators present: Hillary M., Shonda A., guest investigators: Marcia, Brad, and Andy

Equipment: Olympus C-3000 digital camera, Kodak DC280 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, Sony Digital-8 Handycam, Extech IR thermometer

History: Little is known about this house, which is three houses down from the Clay Haus. The house was purchased by the Snider family in the mid-1980s. The house had been abandoned for at least five years at that time. The Snider's spent several years renovating the house, and finally opened it as a guest house just a few years ago.
Apparitions have been seen in this house by guests who did not know it was haunted. Scott has also had some strange feelings in this house.

Investigation: We (Hillary, Shonda, and Marcia) arrived at the Zane Trace Guest House around 9:30 p.m. We immediately began taking control pictures and sweeping the house for EMF and temperature readings. While Marcia was taking EMF readings in the corner, she said that she sensed someone standing behind her. I immediately took a picture and got an orb on her back! We then moved into the living room. Marcia was getting a reading fluctuating between 2.5 and 3.0 on the EMF meter in the far corner, but could find no source. I took a picture, but did not get anything around her. We searched in vain to find an explanation for the reading for several minutes, when the meter suddenly dropped below 2.0. Later, while reviewing the pictures, I found that there was an orb hovering above her in the corner when I took that first picture! A few minutes later, Andy and Brad came over to introduce themselves. We decided that we wanted to start our investigation of the Clay Haus immediately, so we set up an infrared video camera pointed up the main stairway, and left the house.
A little before 4 a.m., we returned to the guest house. We all took a long break in the living room, and headed upstairs to the "rose room" at 4:10 for an EVP session. Shonda set up her video camera in the room across the hall, pointing into the hallway. During the time we were in the rose room, we got several pictures of orbs, including a pink one which looked quite similar to the orb from the Clay Haus. We obtained no EVPs during this session.
At roughly 4:30. Brad and Andy headed over to the "gold room", while Shonda and Marcia and I remained in the rose room. A few minutes later, Brad stated that he saw a moving orb on the LCD screen of Shonda's video camera, so I moved over to the gold room as well. Brad laid down on the small twin bed, I sat on the queen-sized bed, and Andy sat in the middle of the room. Only a couple minutes after lying down, Brad felt something touching his feet. Although I did not get a picture of an orb by his feet at that time, I did get several moving orb pics during this EVP session. Brad got several pics of an orb on the ceiling above him. When Shonda and Marcia heard of the luck we were having in the gold room (they were getting nothing in the rose room during this time), they decided to come over to the gold room with us. Seven minutes into the EVP session, I thought I heard a noise over in the unused guest room. I took a picture, and found an orb in the doorway to that room. Forty seconds later, Andrew, Brad and Marcia heard voices downstairs. Shonda and I did not hear them. We did obtain one EVP in this room about twelve minutes later. Around 5 a.m., after being up all night investigating, we decided to call it quits.

Conclusion: We did obtain a number of moving orb pictures and strange EMF readings, which we were not able to explain. We also obtained a few orbs on video, and one possible EVP. This leads us to believe that something paranormal took place in this house while we were there. The one thing we can't help but wonder though, is if there are entities that are actually connected with this house, or if the spirits from the Clay Haus followed us to this house. Hopefully, further research will help us to answer this question in time.

Thanks very much to Scott Snider and the entire Snider family for their incredible hospitality.

Submitted by Hillary Murdoch