From Chasing Shadows by Larry Wilson.
That October, I returned to “Graveyard X” with a local central Illinois paranormal investigator named Ed Osborne. Ed is very knowledgeable and a good friend who I have a great deal of respect for. It was the Wednesday night before Halloween, and it was a cool (but not cold) evening. Ed and I had been in the cemetery for close to an hour taking pictures and checking EMF and temperature readings. Nothing seemed to be out of the ordinary, and it was about 7:30pm.
The curfew for the cemetery is 8:00pm, and it is patrolled by the county sheriff’s department, so Ed and I decided to make a final pass through the cemetery and then leave by curfew. I scanned the cemetery for temperature using my laser-pointed digital thermometer. The average temperature that night was 44 degrees. Everywhere I scanned, the temperature read 44 degrees Fahrenheit, that is, until I passed by the cement bench.
As I passed by the bench, the temperature began to drop. First the temperature dropped below 40 degrees Fahrenheit, then it dropped below 30 degrees, then it dropped below 20 degrees. The temperature continued to drop steadily until it finally reached a low of minus 16 degrees below zero. Ed and I could not believe what we were seeing, so to make sure that there was not some type of malfunction, and to make sure that the thermometer was set to Fahrenheit and not Celsius, I shut it off and then turned it back on. It was definitely set to Fahrenheit.
I started scanning the cemetery again. The average temperature was still 44 degrees everywhere, everywhere that is, except the spot next to the concrete bench. Again, the temperature dropped to below zero. My hands were freezing and my nose felt like it was becoming frostbitten. Every time I would move the thermometer more than four or five inches, the temperature would go back up to 44 degrees, but as soon as I would move it back to the cold spot, it would go below zero. At approximately 8:15pm, Ed and I decided we had better leave since it was after curfew and we were trying to be respectful of the cemetery rules.
When we left the cemetery, the temperature was still minus eleven degrees Fahrenheit. When we got in my vehicle, I turned the heat on to warm up my fingers and nose because they felt frozen. So, at one point, we had experienced a 62 degree temperature drop, without explanation. I have been back to the cemetery many times since, but have never recorded such an extreme temperature fluctuation again.
I cannot place my finger on it, but each time that I return to “Graveyard X” things seem different than the last time I was there. I was starting to think I was imagining this, until one day Ed Osborne raised the issue with me. He said, “Larry, have you ever noticed, or is it just me, but every time I come back to this place, something seems different. I don’t know what it is but things seem to change.”
I explained to Ed that this was exactly the way I felt each time that I returned to Anderson. I have been there many times now and several times it seemed like tombstones had moved, or there were gravestones that had not been there before, even though I had walked past that particular spot many times. I am not talking about new stones, but very old stones. It seemed like the physical environment of the cemetery had been altered…
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Interesting experience. I wonder if the colder temp could have been in the earth below the bench, such as a frozen up cracked irrigation pipe that has ice right under the benches side mounting posts, which would allow thew cold to migrate to the area you were getting thermal contact numbers on.
Robert Veach
Vparanormal.com