Paranormal Investigtor II - Silver Terrace Cemetery (Session 1 of 2)

This past Saturday was the second class of the Nevada Ghost and Paranormal Series offered by TMCC. The first session of the class involved a preliminary investigation of the Silver Terrace Cemetery in Virginia City, Nevada.

There were about 15 students signed up. We all met at the Miner's Park, a short walk away from the cemetery. Here we got our instructions from Janice Oberding, divided up into 3 groups of 5; each group having a dowser and at least one person with psychic sensitivity. We introduced ourselves to the others in our group, filled out our investigations logs and proceeded to the cemetery.

Ten cemeteries actually make up the Silver Terrace Cemetery: Masonic, Oddfellows, West End, Firemen's, Silver Terrace, Wilson and Brown, Improved Order of Redmen, Knights of Pythias, City/County, and Catholic. The population of the cemetery is at least triple the population of modern day Virginia City. It's a reminder of the towns glorious past.

Our group which consisted of Gail, her husband Scott, Karen, Mona and myself decided to head toward the Catholic section. Karen had an extra set of dowsing rods with her that she loaned to me. I have never used dowsing rods before so I was anxious to try them out. She explained that you can find or "divine" all sorts of stuff: water, metals, people, and unmarked graves. She also told me that you can communicate with spirits by framing questions in a yes/no format. As we were walking along the path leading to the Catholic cemetery, Gail (our sensitive) suddenly stopped and asked me to use the divining rods along the right side of the road where there were a few grave stones. I headed in the direction she pointed. She told me she was sensing a child spirit. As I approached the spot she had indicated the rods both began pulling in that direction. What a feeling! It was as if the rods had a mind of their own. I was instructed to ask the rods to cross once I was over the grave. I made a minor adjustment in my direction and the rods crossed. Gail asked me to "ask" if there was a spirit present, the rods crossed again. We asked if the spirit was a child. Again the rods gave an affirmitive answer. Boy? No answer. Girl? No answer. Two children? Yes. Twins? Yes. Boys? No answer. Girls? No answer. A boy and a girl? Yes. Gail took a closer look at the grave. It was pretty well hidden under a large sagebrush. She pushed the sage brush aside and found a small metal sign, probably posted by one of the restoration organizations. It listed the grave as holding twins and a date. Creepy? Yes!!

I got to play with the dowsing rods while wandering around the Catholic cemetery and "spoke" to a spirit of a man whose grave looks like it might have slid down the hill on the side of the cemetery due to seismic activity. From our questioning we determined he was Irish and he had contacted us because he was attracted to Karen (Karen has red hair and is half Irish). Maybe she reminded him of a family member (shrug).

We headed up to the Masonic section where according to Janice Oberding, there has been reports of paranormal activity. The high winds prevented us from doing any EVP work that day, so we took several more pictures before heading down to the entrance to meet up with the rest of the class.

Since the second portion of the class is going to be revealing our findings, we didn't really talk about any of the particulars of the investigation, but rather the weather conditions, and any difficulties or obstacles we encountered. Homer, one of the members of the class is an expert dowser and shared the basics of dowsing with us. It's a facinating field and if you want more information go to: http://www.dowsers.org/ the American Society of Dowsers website.