Hello and welcome to SFPI. If it's your first time visiting please start here.

SFPI investigator Christina writes: Richard had been living at his house on Chenery Street for over a year, but had yet to get to the renovation projects he had been planning since he moved in. His own architecture firm's projects had kept him busy enough, but now he was in love and highly motivated; he and his girlfriend were ready to expand their relationship and move in together. The first step was to expand their actual physical space.

The house was built in 1857 and was reputed to have been a schoolhouse around the turn of the century. Their number one project was to gut the old structure attached to the back of the house, most likely added in the 1960s. Neighbors told them it was once used as a chicken coop, but it had been completely boarded up for years. When Richard and Anita opened it up, they unearthed piles of dead rodents and dead cats and various other desiccated forms they chose not to look at too closely. The experience was unnerving. Their number two project was to empty the attic which had previously remained undisturbed and had accumulated many past tenants' abandoned junk. Having accomplished both of their projects that day, it was after the duo had opened up these two rooms that the house began to take on a very different and decidedly unpleasant air. Neither of them were happy with the lingering "dead" feelings in their previously unused rooms. The continued uneasiness and a persistent lack of any physical evidence of a living person being responsible led Richard to contact us for help.

Philo and I did a preliminary visit to the house and met with them to check out the space and get the full story of what they'd been experiencing. When we arrived their two Jack Russell terriers appeared generally frantic and remained so as we toured the home. Richard pointed out the spots that he was particularly disturbed by, primarily the chicken coop structure and the attic. What Philo and I noticed, though, independently, was that there was a concentration of overly still and stuck energy coming from the bedroom closet and in and around their bedroom window. Richard and Anita shared that while they had both previously experienced the sensation of being watched in the house, after the renovations the "peeping tom" experience had become much more frequent and it was this window in particular that disturbed them the most, often accompanied by a smell of cigarette smoke from an unidentifiable source.

Later, when Philo decided to climb the ladder to the attic floor above, the dogs' became even more frantic. I thought it was a forbidding sort of bark, accompanied with the sense of "Are you crazy? Why would you want to go up there?" What Philo picked up on was an absence, too much of one for a room that had been previously full of belongings. He said something was most definitely hiding.

We scheduled a time to return two weeks later when the house would be quiet; both Richard and Anita, and gratefully their dogs, would be spending the night elsewhere. The house had been empty and quiet all day and evening when we and two other crew members arrived at 1 a.m. After getting our initial bearings and baseline readings, we began our own tour in the dark around the house, checking out energy and getting familiar with the home's noises, including a set of windchimes located in the kitchen. They would chime a great deal and then later stop, a fact we attributed to a nearby heating vent.

When we left the kitchen and went back into the living room, both of us were overcome with full body chills. We had each stepped into different cold spots, quite unexpectedly. We could not find a possible source for a physical breeze that could have come in either. In any case, there was no movement in the air, just deep, cold stillness. That combined with the hair standing up on the back of our necks pointed to paranormal phenomenon. While nothing unusual was showing up in our temperature readings, we found we could literally chase the cold spots around the room with the EMF gauge and get distinctive readings, averaging around .5 in areas of the living room that were previously read at zero.

Suddenly, the energy jumped at Philo's body and he began to experience knife-like pokings and pains in the middle of his back. I could follow these pains that Philo was experiencing and get significant fluctuations in the EMF readings from .3 to .9 (compared to Philo's "normal" reading of .0 or .1)--the higher the reading, the greater the pain. We backed away from the energy and Philo began to communicate with it. The dead silence he heard in return was significant in itself; Philo, an especially sensitive clairaudient psychic, meaning he can hear paranormal phenomenon, was not getting a peep. He also began sensing a non-human presence, like a big dog. Soon, more shapes began to form, another dog and a man. Philo began to hear low growling, and an inarticulate groaning from the man.

Doing some EVP work I asked, "Do you like what Richard and Anita are doing with the house?" Suddenly the set of colored Christmas lights that had been left on in the front entry alcove went out. It was quite dramatic, but we suspected that they might have been set to go off on a timer. The electric outlet for the lights was hidden behind unmoveable shelving so we were unable to determine the cause. Philo asked if a spirit had made the lights go out, and a windchime rang once, loudly. He asked the spirit to do it again, and the windchime rang very loudly, twice this time. I saw a bright flash of light near the windchimes at this time. Moving over to the windchimes and determining that the heat was not blowing at all, I asked again if it had made the lights go out to see if we could get the same result, trying to establish a yes (two gongs) or no (one gong) communication. Suddenly, it got very cold and Philo heard the low, non-verbal growling again.

We took turns checking out the bedroom and each independently saw an older woman in Victorian-like dress with a grey-haired bun. Philo saw her hiding in the closet. We heard an ominous-sounding rumbling that we couldn't identify. We asked about it and the windchimes started ringing in one/two formations in response to our questions. Unfortunately, the recorder turned off somehow before we started this conversation and we have no evidence of the amazing and bizarre "yes/no" conversation with the windchimes. We tried to replicate the experience with the windchimes when the heater was on and off later and the heating vent appeared to have no impact. We were warmed up now and ready to take on the most noted "creepy" spots. As we made our way back to the old chicken coop structure, Philo spotted who he suspected to be the peeping tom. Before comparing notes, I took a look and saw a man dressed like a physical laborer from the early 1900's, wearing a red plaid shirt. Philo saw an Irish man with red hair. We weren't quite sure if we were looking at the same spirit, but decided to meet up with whoever it was in the chicken coop. Now Philo could hear a clear clairaudient conversation, unlike the dead silence we met in the main house earlier. Philo heard a name, Mike Ramsey, the year 1935. Then he saw a man in the chicken coop, a different man than the red haired Irishman, this one being tall, dark haired, better dressed and more refined. Philo informed me that the man has been hanging around outside the house looking for the former owners, especially a woman he was in love with, and that he spent a lot of time in the chicken coop structure. He didn't want to run into her husband. This man, according to Philo, was our peeping Tom and that he appeared to be stuck in a time loop outside the house, never able to enter. He wondered if it was residual energy and noted that it didn't feel like it. Philo got an intuition to invite him inside the house to see what would happen. We both felt him move past us with a wave of emotion, mostly gratitude and amazement. My legs went numb in response to this rush of energy. Our last stop was the attic. Since our last visit, Richard and Anita had transformed the space even more into an inviting, cozy nook, with two skylights. The skylights seemed to be the perfect spot to open a portal and invite everyone to leave. As we settled in for this final phase, we took stock of who was who. Mike Ramsey was a name we encountered in relation to our peeping tom. There was also the Victorian-looking woman named El- or Em- something, and then there was the dark, cold, quiet, menacing presence from the living room with two menacing dogs. "But wait, there's also the red haired Irishman and he isn't on the same time plain as these others at all." When he said this, Philo heard a loud "Touché," which was an odd and dated comment that we both found amusing. The (ghost) dogs were agitated, barking like mad at Philo. The woman's energy was very still and very secretive, especially around an affair she appeared to have been having with a man who was still trying to meet up with her, all the while hiding from her abusive husband. The story filled out and we saw the triangular energetic standoff between the woman, the peeping tom who was her lover, and the dark and abusive husband in the living room with the dogs. It seemed to me that these three were still playing out--or staying stuck in-- this formation from their most recent lives.

Now, the formerly mute husband began screaming at Philo. We decided to open the portal and the woman went right away, with her peeping lover not far behind her. Awhile later, after telling the husband that there was no reason to stay now that they had gone, we both felt him move past us. He hesitated at the portal, and we assured him that his dogs would be able go with him, and that wherever he was going there would be forgiveness, that it would be better to move on to the unknown rather than stay stuck in a place of unchanging pain. He communicated that he killed his wife and had been afraid to leave for that reason. But he did leave, sending his dogs ahead, rudely poking Philo in the back one last time on his way out. The heaviness in the house lightened dramatically. The only spirit that did not leave was the working-man in the red plaid shirt, who seemed very enthusiastic about helping with the projects around the house. We respected his choice, since he did not seem to mean any harm, but we noted to keep an eye on him in the future.

The house was as clean as it was going to get in one evening and we were tired. We descended from the attic into a much-changed living room with clear, cheerful energy--a vast contrast to its former chilly grimness. The reunited woman and man popped back in for a moment and I heard, loud and clear. "It's Ella." I thanked her for clarifying her name for us. With a last look around, Philo said, "Richard's Jack Russells should be much happier now that the ghost dogs are not sleeping in their beds." We laughed and went home.

The next day Richard and Anita reported, "The house looks and feels fabulous." They said that they felt as if they had returned to a completely different house, and that their dogs--usually quite the frantic barkers--were uncharacteristically mellow, particularly after being in a kennel. "I didn't know the dogs could be this mellow," Anita said. Richard and Anita are enjoying their new attic meditation space and are planning on converting the old chicken coop structure into an art studio.

Hello and welcome to SFPI. If it's your first time visiting please start here.

Philo writes: When we heard from Mira, pictured, a resident who lives on Abbey Street, we were excited. Why? Abbey Street is a short one-block long road that runs smack into the fence surrounding the Mission Dolores cemetery. If you're not familiar with our City, all of the San Francisco cemeteries were removed and relocated to the city of Colma many years ago and with the exception of the military cemetery in The Presidio, the graves at Mission Dolores are the only other officially sanctioned burial grounds in San Francisco. Were the problems being encountered by Mira and her boyfriend isolated, or did they have something to do with their proximity to the Mission? We set up a time to find out.

At their home we learned that the structure is a two-story building. Our clients have lived upstairs for a few years and the downstairs home has been vacant for as long as they've lived there. "It's just creepy down there," Mira told us. "Most people don't even realize that there's a first floor unit even though it's obvious. Now that we're looking at buying the whole building from the landlord, we really want to know what we'd be dealing with. The unit gives everybody the creeps."

Heading downstairs we entered the home and were immediately greeted at the door by an unexplainable 16.0 level reading on our electromagnetic field detector. The kitchen was dirty and the furnishings throughout were mostly antiques that all still had noticable price tags on them, a bed, sofa, armoire, the works. Mira explained, "The owner bought all this stuff at an auction and it's been down here the whole time. It's as if he chose all this for the ghosts who live here." It was rather bizarre, adding a sense of the absurd to an atmosphere that was already noticably thick and dark. Christina mentioned to me, "It kind of feels like molasses in here." I was inclined to agree. "I'm getting a pretty steady 4.7 on the EMF in here now too," she told me.

I was drawn to the back of the house, particularly to a small room with no windows or outlets of any kind. In the next room the bed was ruffled up. Mira told us, "I was down here earlier and it wasn't like that." The bathroom door was open and the medicine cabinet was open. "It wasn't like that earlier down here either," she explained. I started taking photographs and shortly thereafter our camera battery died. Christina started feeling a little ill. Once we got a feel for the layout of the home it was time for lights out and we headed to the back of the house where the energy felt the thickest and sat on the floor to do some EVP work and readings.

It wasn't long before we were feeling encroached upon by an energy that was full of static yet very silent. I was able to make out a female present and soon noticed she had several female friends and one male friend. They were all seniors. Why were they hanging out in this home? The answer seemed to be that it was a good place to hang out, and soon we understood that they were indeed right. With the landlord having furnished the home and left it empty for years there were those associated with The Mission and the surrounding neighborhood that spent their nights there. "I'm getting the name Elizabeth," I told them. Christina replied, "I just got the name Elizabeth loud and clear myself." Listening to the audio recordings it was about that time the bangings began inside the armoire, only we wouldn't really become clear about this until later. The more aware of the women we became the more pleasant they felt, with a high level of Catholic energy about them all. They obviously weren't attached to the property, merely visiting on a regular basis, which made it clearer that something else was lurking below the surface.

"There's a Native American male here too," I informed them. I started seeing pictures of when Mission Dolores was originally settled and how he had died, that he quite possibly was killed on the property prior to the home ever being built. "Owww," I exclaimed feeling a sudden stabbing pain in my side. Explaining our purpose for being there and that we meant no harm he began to understand that we were not necessarily in agreement with the Catholic seniors and were really uninvolved non-judgmental parties. The energy in the room began to change somewhat, although the crew and I were struck by the irony of all the conflict in the space between these elderly Catholic spirits hanging out in the same home as someone who was either killed by the Catholics, or had died in such a way that he held them responsible. The only clear name I was getting was "John" but that his name had the letter M in it, something like "Mont..."

Soon we began focusing in on a woman named "Audrey." Audrey was a younger woman, a red head, and apparently she used to live in the home and had died in the home, possibly the most recent actual previously living resident. We were also getting a daughter's name, "Ruth." With the mention of the name Christina and I both were hit with a full body tingling sensation and a tremendous sense of sadness and loss. It seems Audrey had lost her baby and there was a great deal of guilt and grief surrounding her.

Everything in the house seemed to have been existing in some dysfunctional sense of balance and conflict and once these energies began to shift and move, a darker energy become apparent - a man of dark spirituality and alcoholism named Sam. "He's the most unpleasant spirit I've run into in a long time," I told Christina. "I'm also getting that he's connected to the graveyard, but not in it, very anti-Catholic, throwing a lot of negative energy that way. I don't think he's really attached to the property, but he's got this very dark anti-God energy that he's putting out. There's somebody in the graveyard he's attached to, someone who shouldn't have died, that the story isn't being told truthfully and the lies have really been what fueled his negative energy toward the Mission, religion and the world."

After working with Sam for some time we began to understand that this has been going on since 1927 and that he wasn't as big of a problem as he had previously appeared. He began to understand how his attachment to the resentment and injustice hadn't been serving anyone and the energy of the entire home began to shift and rise. We all got goosebumps, chills from the positively charged spiritual energy rushing into the home. Christina and I worked on helping spirits that wanted to move on do so and the house became increasingly lighter.

Our audio recordings of the home did not pick up any clear evidence of electronic voice phenomenon, nor did we obtain any other scientific based evidence. The recordings of the banging inside the armoire, however, are most interesting. Here's the first bang which Christina is talking over, and the second bang from the armoire which is quite clear. We will be doing further research into the history of the property soon.

Hello and welcome to SFPI. If it's your first time visiting please start here.

Philo writes: We were contacted by a tenant over at The Steinhart who reported seeing a tall man in a black top hat in his apartment since the day he moved in. "Dexter" felt certain there were spirits in his home, particularly in and around a certain closet. The Steinhart is a beautiful old building on the Register of National Historic Places and it has been an apartment hotel since 1910. Christina and I were excited by his report of a visual apparition. Having previously lived for several years only a block from there myself, in a haunted apartment of my own, I knew first hand what he was going through. We agreed to pay him a visit and investigate.

Arriving at The Steinhart we made our way up the grand stairs and took the classic elevator up to his floor. From the moment I entered his unit I could tell that something was amiss. There was an energy in the air, a feeling I'm quite familiar with. We sat down with Dexter and had a cup of tea and we talked about his experiences. I picked up on two spirits in the home during our conversation and we agreed to return a few days later to investigate.

Upon returning we began taking initial base readings with our instruments and found nothing significant anywhere in the apartment beyond the usual suspects, a microwave oven and a clock radio. Given that Dexter had made the decision not to put anything in that closet, possibly for good reason, Christina and I and our one crew member for the night decided to spend some time in there ourselves. Temperature readings were consistent with the rest of the home, but it wasn't long before Christina and I were both picking up on a male spirit. The name I was getting was John or Charles or John Charles and the surname Fountain or Fontaine came up as well. "I'm also hearing the name Debbie loud and clear," I told her and Christina immediately agreed - "I just got the name Debbie too." It seemed to be that the male spirit was entering the apartment through a portal in the closet and that he was looking for a woman named Debbie. He was associated with the building in The Steinhart's earliest years, the 1910's. It was clear that he didn't mean anyone any harm and that he wasn't even attached to the property, coming and going as he pleased. We conducted considerable EVP work in the closet and took a variety of readings all of which were inconclusive.

Leaving the closet I began to zero in on a female energy in the bathroom. Taking several photographs we were both a little surprised when the flash suddenly stopped working and our cameras ceased to function. Could this be Debbie we wondered? Entering the bathroom the three of us sat down on the floor. While we had very different experiences in there, what we agree on is that a female spirit was trapped in the bathroom, primarily getting up from the bathtub and running to close and lock the door, only to find herself back in the bathtub again and getting out to run for the door and that this cycle had been playing out since 1967. Not being a spirit on the same timeline as the man from the closet, we had our doubts she was Debbie.

My time spent in the bathroom was actually incredibly loud, a male voice screaming the name Lucy over and over and over. Meanwhile, Christina found herself almost immediately overwhelmed by the distress of our female spirit. Did she commit suicide in the bathtub or did someone kill her in this bathroom? We couldn't agree, but we were both clear she needed our assistance. Having done considerable EVP work and readings, Christina talked to her and we worked on opening a portal for her to move on. Moments later you could feel the energy in the bathroom begin to shift.

While our audio recordings at the Steiner did generate several odd and indistinguishable noises, we did not generate anything clearly registering as electronic voice phenomenon at this location. We have yet to attempt to check property records on The Steinhart for any of the names that we encountered. While our photographs didn't reveal anything unusual and our scientific tools failed to generate a single reading out of the ordinary, our personal experiences and clairvoyant readings within the home proved to be incredibly interesting. Most importantly, Dexter's experience of his home has now changed as a result of our visit. He writes, "I can't get over how different the bathroom here feels, the whole apartment really. It's like an entirely different home except for John Charles. Now that I know that he's just passing through too I'm finding the whole experience amusing. Thanks so much for coming."