PORT ANGELES — A shadowy figure, footsteps and whispering voices are among the phenomena a ghost hunting team will look for in video and audio footage of their investigation of the Museum at the Carnegie and Family Shoe Store.
The team spent the second of their two nights here at the locations after an exciting night in the Port Angeles Underground and Michael’s Divine Dining on Friday.
The Paranormal Investigations of Historical America team started at the museum, 207 S. Lincoln St., on Saturday.
Debbie Knapp, who was the lead investigator of the night, said several people on the team heard footsteps upstairs when the group was downstairs.
“The entire group was accounted for downstairs,” said Kathy Monds, executive director of the Clallam County Historical Society.
An active artifact
During the investigation, Monds allowed the group to use a camera and to try to get some audio recordings from an artifact that had caused some trouble in the past.
When this artifact was on display at the museum, many mysterious happenings SEmD footsteps, doors opening and closing SEmD were commonplace. Once it was removed, they stopped.
Although she wouldn’t identify the item, she said it was donated years ago by the Klahanne Club and not much is known about its origins.
Monds and other group members asked questions of the piece and tried to get some electronic voice phenomenons on tape.
Monds and Knapp said nothing was heard around the artifact during the session.
Vaughn Hubbard, who created and operates PIHA, said sometimes sounds that are not audible to the naked ear can be heard on a recording.
For each location visited, the team will spend about 100 hours reviewing video and audio tapes, he said.
Some interesting energy was also found at the museum’s northeast corner, Monds said.
Several instruments that measure energy lit up, but only in that area, she said.
“Of course, even before they came I believed there was something there,” she said.
“But I’ve never felt like it was dangerous or anything.”
Hubbard said a museum is the perfect location for an investigation.
“It is the ideal location because there are artifacts that were likely important to people,” he said.
Shoe store
For the second part of the evening, the group headed to Family Shoe Store, where owner Kevin Thompson showed them around the building.
The building in which the Family Shoe Store is located is the oldest building in downtown Port Angeles and originally sat over tide flats. In 1913-1914, the building was raised to meet street grade.
The second floor was one of at least seven brothels in Port Angeles until it was forced to close in 1942, its website said.
While at the shoe store, a couple of investigators heard some whispering sounds, said Kathy Gavin, one of the investigators.
“People were talking, so we’ll have to go back and listen to hear if we can decipher what was said,” she said.
They also heard some distinct footsteps.
“It was almost like a heel-toe, heel-toe sound,” said Knapp.
But store owner Thompson said he is still a skeptic — for now.
“To me, I hear those noises every night, but I think it is just the building — it is an old building,” he said.
One thing that does have him perplexed, though, is that all the team’s batteries kept going dead.
Hubbard said batteries that should have lasted eight hours were drained in minutes.
Some paranormal investigators believe that if there are spirits around they can drain energy from batteries.
Thompson said that also happens frequently to him.
“I don’t know about that,” he said.
“It is really strange that those batteries kept going out because they were really heavy duty.”
On Friday night, no sounds were heard, but the team did observe a shadowy image at the restaurant, and underground one of the monitoring devices detected something and several members sensed a presence.
Hubbard and his team will review all of the recordings and create DVDs of the investigations for the locations to sell and to promote the history of the area.
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Reporter Paige Dickerson can be reached at 360-417-3535 or at paige.dickerson@peninsuladailynews.com.
