THE GAITHER'S PLANTATION Pt. 4

Now that we are coming to the end of the night at the Gaither's Plantation I would like to shed light on the final incident that occurred. Unpon leaving Cecelia's bedroom we (Mui, Justin, and myself) ventured downstairs where he hooked up with Drew Hester's friend Charles. Not being one to be left out, Charles wanted to know if we wanted to do an other EVP session. I didn't care either way since I don't believe in there authenticity anyways but Mui and Justin agreed whole-heartedly. This time we decided to go into the basement of the facility which has a large stainless steel combination safe that was embedded into the wall and was probably used as a storage place for valuble items. The safe was now locked up tighter then Fort Knox, which didn't matter anyways because the combonation was probably lost through time.

Other than the safe the basement was completely empty with nothing else contained within. It was also very small and any more than six of seven people would probably make the place feel crampted. We decided that this would be the perfect place for our second EVP session of the night.

We each gathered up a chair and headed down into the basement. I don't remember who closed the door but the room became suddenly shrouded in total blackness and then I became truly aware of what it might feel like to be blind. This wasn't slight darkness, this was total blackness of all the senses. There were no windows from which the moonlight might creep through and no other rooms nearby. There was nothing but the sense of an enclosing blackness like the feeling you get when watching an eclipse.

We were each shrouded in the veil of night.

Unlike our previous location where even if all the lights were out we could still see and feel the warmth of the moonlight gleaming through the many windows, here it felt like a blackness of hell. Being shrouded in total blackness my senses began to dull. And quiet. And eventual take on a life of their own as I stopped hearing the breathing of everyone else in the room. I could hear no movement in the air nor feel it across my face because there was no air flow. I could not make out any shapes in the darkness. I began to look inwards slowly evolving and coming into a relaxed and meditative state.

I was alone. Or at least that's what I thought.

I don't know how long we were down in that room because when you enter a deep meditatiive state you tend to lose track of time as you become very in tune to not only yourself but your surroundings. This is what happened to me without me ever knowing it. My mind was blank. Calm. So calm that I don't recall anything from those moments other than I know I was not sleeping.

I know this because at some point during the session and my meditative state I heard voices. To me it sounded like children's voices. They were indistinguishable from one another and just sounded like noise in my head. The only thing I could do to quiet the voices was to yell out, "Quiet!" The voices didn't seem to hear me so I yelled it out again - "Quiet!"

Still no response so eventually I yelled, "Shut up the racked!" (or something to that effect. Since we were filming this I'm sure the exact words are on tape.) to which I finally realized the voices finally disappated. My concentration had been broken. I was fully back to the conscious world. At first I was a little peturbed but then I realized that everyone in the room was starring at me. And then it suddenlt dawned on me that none of them knew what in the hell I was talking about.

The EVP session had been interrupted by my utterance. I was a little embarrased at first but then when I told them my story I realized that no one else in the room had heard the children voices nor had they heard me say anything out loud other than my last line. They were under the impression that everything else was in my head.

"My head?" I thought to myself. Had I imagined it all? The child voices and the utterances for them to shut up? It felt really real to me even after they explanned it back to me. The whole incident was rather strange in that I usually didn't think that I could be so suceptible to such things. I don't know how to explain the incident.

All I know is that my conversation felt real at the time. I really believed that I was truly trying to get children to be quiet. I still don't know what to make of it all.

I walked out of the room a tad disoriented which is normal when you are put in such a situation and I began to question what was the point of it all. I'm not a palm reader and I don't see into the future nor know the past

What I did gather, mind you, was that there is more to this house then meets to I. Was I so enthralled in my meditative state that I lost control of what was fantasy and what is reality? Did I in fact hear the voices of children? Who knows? I don't really believe in the supernatural nor the religeous dogma that is inherent in every Christian myth and legend.

It was an unuasual incident in which I don't know how or what happened nor how it can be explained by someone like me who doen't believe in all of this. When I stepped out of that cold darkness and into the upstairs portion of the house I was extremely taken aback. I couldn't explain to anyon exactly what I heard or why I yelled out loud, but only that I did.

I was told later that the EVP session only lasted about thirty to forty-five minutes and to everyone else in the room this session was a complete bust. For me I had entered an unparralelled psychosis of pure relaxation and meditation of which I had never done before.

When we finally touched base with Ron McLellen and Bob Hunnicutt, Hunnicutt informed me that no previous owner of the house had children. This news was not what I was expecting as I was thinking that there might be ghost spirits everywhere. No such luck; therefore the nature and origins of these voices have up to this point remained a mystery to me.

As we packed up the gear at the slave quarters, in which David Vinson had spent his evening, the thoughts of the voices began to hound on me. We then all moved on to the church location where nothing happened or was caught on tape (that is nothing caught by the naked eye but maybe something would become better on a second viewing). Cleared perhaps?

The whole evening in my opinion was a bust but then again I was neither present at the slave quarters nor at the church so whom an I to say a word. My only experience on this investigation was as experienced at the main house where we were trying for a paranormal response.

I don't know how to evaluate these investigations therefore I don't. This is not something I always look forward to but it is part of my job as production manager on the film so I don't altogether mind. Although I failed to experience anything truly paranormal I look ward to each of these investigations because they are fun and inventive.

Whether or not they are real or not I leave it up to the audience(s) who view the film because ultimately they always have the benifit of the doubt.