The first installment looks at Ghostbusters and how the city has changed in the 25 years since its filming.  The two-part post (part 1, part 2) is thorough, to say the least.

This is a pretty neat way to show just how much impact conservation and preservation make in a city.

For example, that wee “Matera Canvas” advertisement in the bottom left of each photo is for a now-defunct business that began in 1907.  Someone decided to keep that up there (they went out of business sometime around 1990) and, in doing so, preserved a bit of New York history.  The little things count, people!

There are a lot of movies filmed in New York out there, but my fingers are crossed that Scouting New York does Oliver & Company next!

(The article may look a little daunting online–my recommendation would be to pick up an actual, real-life copy.  The design of Atlanta Magazine is quite impressive.)

You’re probably saying to yourself, “Geez, Amelia.  All magazines feature some gimmicky spooktacular article in October.  Why do I care about this one?”

Well I’ll tell you why, impatient reader.  The Wren’s Nest is totally featured!

The Wren’s Nest hosted Patrick in late June.  Kimberly Turner, journalist and Regator co-inventor, tagged along for a long, uneventful night at the Nest.

The most exciting moment probably came when Lain played audio from a different ghost hunting group.  Turn up your volume and listen-

“Come Here”
[Dear subscribers, please check out the actual post for the audio.]

Creepy, no?

That said, there really wasn’t much more to report past that point–aside from the beautiful print Patrick gave us.  Ta da!

Apparently he dabbles in infrared photography.  (It looks way better in person.  Lain and I… do not dabble in photography.)

Overall, I think this makes our place of business cooler than your place of business, even if I am scared to be here by myself.

I’m not really “into” ghosts; however, the girl who initially approached me to ask about ghost hunts was pretty cute so I said, “Oh… alright.”

Listen, I never claimed to be a professional.

Since then, from time to time we’ve let ghost hunters check out the house, and the latest team just returned with their findings–mostly audio taken with very sensitive devices.

They seemed pretty pleased, and below I’ve included what I think are the two clearest and creepiest recordings they captured.

1. “Child up here”

[Dear subscribers, please check out the actual post for the audio.]

This audio was taken from our attic when, apparently, nobody was upstairs. The more muffled voices are from real people downstairs, but you can hear a much more distinct voice about :07 in.

2. “Come here”

[Dear subscribers, please check out the actual post for the audio.]

In this clip, two of the hunters are chatting with a dog barking in the background. Near the end you can hear a whisper that is much more clear than the rest of the audio. It sounds like it’s closer to the mic, but you might have to turn up the volume to hear it.

Previously–Liveblogging Ghost Hunts

…and nope! We’re not allowing any more ghost hunters in here for a while yet. Sorry!

“I noticed the “orb” on your great-great-great grandfather’s picture on the way home and thought it strange since it wasn’t something that was there when I took the picture.

Then while I was looking over my vacation pictures and trying to blow up the one of the Wren’s Nest, I guess I saw what looks to be a grayish figure in the upper left window? I thought it a bit odd since the window is the only one that is not reflecting and looks flat.”

Perhaps this is why Amelia is afraid to be in the Wren’s Nest by herself.

Anyway, I can’t really see the figure in the window. Can you?

While we have had several ghost hunts from some very well-respected and televised professionals, I’ve yet to see anything definitive that there are ghosts in this place.

If I knew how to put audio on this blog, I’d let you listen to the mysterious (and flat!) whistling of “Baby Bumble Bee” that some of the ghost hunters caught on tape. Now that’s a little eerie.

Email me (lain@wrensnestonline.com) if you want a listen.

EDIT, 1/29/08, 1:13 pm–

So, I finally got around to installing the audio software. Assuming it works, here’s the ghost whistling:

[Dear subscribers, please check out the actual post for the audio.]

You might have to turn up your speakers, but listen for the whistling in the second half. If the audio isn’t working, I’m currently trying to fix it.

Thanks, Rusty!

That, friends, is because I am the weenie to end all weenies. I am the weeniest weenie that ever weenied. Thus the fact that I am at the Wren’s Nest at 11:36pm on a ghost hunt is not only a testament to my commitment to this house, but also my own stupidity. I shall not sleep for days.

Luckily, I am not alone in my stupidity. Other than Lain, who is pretty okay, this ghost hunt – oh wait, have I not mentioned we’re conducting a Friday the 13th ghost hunt? – also involves other friends of the Wren’s Nest, who stand at varying levels of bravery/stupidity.

At the moment, the good folks of Ghost Hounds are going from room to room with a psychic (I think?) who is telling us things about the rooms that we already know, but that she doesn’t. Gack!

11:48pm: oh god oh god. The doorbell just rang. Who the deuce was that?!

11:49pm: Ghost hounds say it was someone living. I have no proof. In the meantime, they’re asking if anyone is pregnant. Lain, do you have something to share with us?

11:52pm: I’m not sure how I feel about this ghost business. But I do know how I feel about this frightened business.

By the way, there is a live webcast and you, dear reader, can find it here:

Live Webcast

[EDIT: The webcast has been archived here. Just scroll down a little.

It's long and sometimes static-y, but why wouldn't you want to see Lain discussing ghosts with a psychic and Patrick Burns, star of the television show Haunting Evidence?

(Patrick Burns -- big time ghost huntin' celebrity)

Also present is Reese Christian, currently writing a book about ghosts in Georgia.]

11:59: The conversation here is filled with statements like “that was the chair!” and “oh no, that was a person!” I mean, really. How often do you need to clarify that.

12:45: The web chatters are not only asking questions, but making claims about happenings in the house. I’m going to need a briefer about paranormal perception. It works across the sea? Christine from Australia says so.

We’ve now gone into the attic (bad web reception), the hall, and the front parlor. In the hallway, a spirit was, ah, detected? like, 3 feet to my left. Was I brave? Heavens no.

1:06am: The great thing is, the Ghost Hounds are cracking jokes, making fun of each other, having a grand old time. Someone has made the comment “Fear the living, not the dead”. I’m not sure where that puts me, confidence-wise.

1:11: The ghost hunt is over? I have survived? The Ghost Hounds are now discussing ghost hunting celebrities? It’s all true.

Looks like Friday the 13th served us well, and Saturday the 14th had little to offer. Apparently, over 100 folks were tuned into the webcast, all jazzed and brave. Maybe that’s because they weren’t here. Though with that many fans, perhaps the Wren’s Nest will become the new hot spot for ghost -excuse me, spirit – enthusiasts from all over. We’re certainly not complaining.

8:16 am – Wake up.

8:21 am – Wake up for real this time.

9:02 am – Head to Wordsmiths Books to investigate the “Editor’s Picks” section that will become “The Wren’s Nest” section for the month of August. We are replacing the estimable Baby Got Books team, so we’ve got some chock-filled quality to live up to.

9:18 am – Deliver new brochures to Decatur City Hall.

9:29 am – Stop at Chick-Fil-A for Customer Appreciation Week and a free chicken biscuit.

9:40 am – Pick up contributions sent to my parent’s house instead of the Wren’s Nest. Steal coffee.

10:15 am – Arrive at the Wren’s Nest.

10:17 am – Bookkeeping.

11:18 am – Head to lunch meeting at No Mas! Cantina with folks from the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau. I neglected to write down the time for the meeting, so we’re heading out early and bringing books.

12:59 pm – Return to the Wren’s Nest.

1:00 pm – Sift through the mail.

1:12 pm – Start writing a lot of overdue thank you notes. …or get distracted and write a blog post.

2:12 pm* – Lead (haha) the Wren’s Nest Publishing Company. Today’s topics–fonts, author biographies, what does soy nut butter really taste like?

4:15 pm – Play with dogs at the house I’m housesitting.

7:00 pm – White Lawn Party. You know, just like P Diddy does, but this time with swim team parents / hot shot lawyers.

7:30 pm – My sister’s graduation party.

10:00 pm – Ghost Hunt complete with live webcast and maybe even a ghost or two. I’m hoping my all-white outfit will help us out in this regard, as well as my inevitable inebriation at the start.

Sunrise, Saturday- Head home!

*All times past this point are estimations, thankyouverymuch.

**At some point I might add pictures to this post, but you may notice that I’m already a few minutes behind schedule!

(That’s me on the hood)

And these aren’t just any ladies–they’re ghost huntin’ ladies!

All nine of them just waltzed in, and it’s about time, too! I get nervous here by myself after dark. Nothin’ like a pack of ghost hunting babes to keep me warm.

Stay tuned for live updates.

10:08 PM: Feeling good, settling in. Just a few hours ago I was judging our youth poetry slam here at the Wren’s Nest, and now I’m ghost hunting on ladies night. Does it get any weirder?

The vibe is a little different than your average ghost hunt (check out earlier ghost hunt vibes: one, two, three, and four). I feel like we’re setting up for a tea party or a baby shower or something, so I’m pretty relaxed. Crackin’ wise, bein’ cool kool as usual.

I do not expect this to last long.

10:51 PM: Just finished an EVP in Joel Chandler Harris‘ room. It was quiet. Maybe too quiet.

When one of the ladies asked if it was appropriate that women now had the right to vote, the lights flickered.

11:35 PM: In order to measure energy, ghost hunters often have electromagnetic wave meters.

In Joel Chandler Harris’ room, they wedged a dime in the meter (in the slot under the colors) so nobody would have to stress their thumb pressing it the whole time to keep it on. When the meter is on, the green light on the left is solid. The other lights go solid according to the amount of energy detected.

In the daughters’ room, we used a thumb instead of a dime, and as a result, the readings on the meter were much more active. The girl ghosts were chatty Cathies, I tell you what.

How weird is it when you ask a question to the room and then a machine responds and then you’re supposed to assume that the response is the work of a spirit? Real weird.

Also, what does it mean when you use something unbiased, like a dime, and get no results? Especially when you next use something potentially biased and get results?

11:57 PM: Ghost hunting has given way to discussion of Memoirs of a Geisha (book and movie). We’ll regain focus soon, I think.

12:44 AM: More discussion with a female ghost in the hallway. We do this with all of the lights out for added scariness. Also, added sleepiness. In the middle of our alleged discussion with a ghost, one hunter started snoring. Boo!

That’s it for tonight, apparently. I’ll update this tomorrow with closing thoughts. For now, however, it’s time to hit the road before I have to turn the lights out by myself.

(Carson is the one in the glasses)

Luckily for you, she’s got her laptop under there and is prepared to post live updates on Wren’s Nest Ghost Hunt 2007, Chapter III: This Time, It’s For Real.

Keep it locked, and we’ll keep you posted throughout the evening on the Wren’s Nest ghosts, the Ghost Hounds, and everything bizarre that happens along the way.

[For those of you following on facebook, this post will probably stop here. More awaits you at wrensnestonline.com/blog]

9:38 pm, Lain – Okay, so maybe Carson wasn’t as scared as I’d thought. She made her way not only out from under the desk, but out of the room, too…about forty minutes ago.

And she hasn’t come back.

Gulp.

Actually, she has. But only to tell me that while the Hounds were patrolling for ghosts in the attic, she stood by a camera downstairs, perfectly still right by the stairs.

While she was listening to the faint voices of the Ghost Hounds above, the camera started making noises. It was taking pictures. BY ITSELF!

She heard the Hounds upstairs– “There it is, going down the stairs!”

WNIC flipped, ran in here, flipped out some more, and ran out.

Current status – Whaa?

11:06 pm, Carson – Ghah.

Lain and I just emerged with the ghost hunting team from the parlor, where we’ve been circled up, motionless and goosepimpled for over an hour. The electromagnetic field detectors (otherwise known as K2 meters) were going wild!

Turns out we have a spirit in our midst.
Ghost hunting is like playing a spooky version of 20 questions. With the K2 meters picking up energy fields in the vicinity, the dialogue goes something like this:

Ghost Hunter: Spirit, if you’re here, show us using the device in my hands. (K2 meter hesitates, then flashes. Hmm…)

GH: Is that you? If you’re trying to communicate with us, flash the device once. (Silence. Meter flashes once. Oooo!)

GH: Thank you. Can you flash it twice for me now? (Meter flashes twice, as if on command. Eeek!)

GH: Great. Now I’m going to ask you some questions. Please answer one flash for no, two for yes. (Meter goes berserk. Chills all around!)

And so on.

11:42 pm, Lain – I’m not sure if “spooky” really does the K2 meter justice.

So you’re sitting in the dark with a bunch of people you don’t know, listening to this guy ask questions and then, somehow, getting answers from a spirit who is communicating through a light meter.

Tonight, we were talking to a spirit named something like “May Bell” or “Mabel” who was very patient with our questions.

So patient, in fact, that the Q&A session lulled me into thinking that this was totally normal discourse. When we started asking questions, and the light meter would answer, I’d get goosebumps and give a little shriek.

But then, once the answers became consistent, it was like we were in a conversation with this chick May who died sometime before 1870, was originally born in Trinidad, worked in the kitchen of the former plantation, and wore a white dress with red checkers. I left feeling like made a new friend!

…which, when you consider we were talking to a ghost communicating through a light meter, is totally and utterly spooky.

Current Status – bemused …and shaking a bit.

11:59 pm, Carson – Aside from the K2 meter, which I too became abnormally comfortable with, we were witness to some other spooky phenomena.

Like the time Darren reported that his entire left arm had gone cold.

Or when Patrick saw an orb of light… swirling over my head.

Or when one of the women claimed to be seeing Mabel clearly in her mind, complete with head scarf and red checkered dress. And when she asked Mabel if her visions were correct, the spirit would answer enthusiastically in the affirmative (using the light meter).

But the thing that really made my hair stand on end was when the motion-detector camera in the hall would spontaneously start snapping away, when clearly there was nobody there…

Hair on end, yes, but grinning all the while.

Mabel from Trinidad, welcome to the Wren’s Nest!

12:20 am, Lain – Welp, the Ghost Hounds are out of here. Thanks, y’all, for introducing me to new friends and new nightmares.

Next ghost hunt: June 2nd, but who knows if I’ll be here–it’s ladies night. Ladies ghost night, that is.

Current Status – Really, really glad I’m not turning out the lights by myself this time.

I didn’t, until 2:13 pm today, when after the conclusion of an unexpectedly intense meeting here in the office, a clock spontaneously detached itself from the wall and rolled under my chair. I doubt I would classify myself among the estimated 17 million Americans who refuse to work, fly or buy houses on this day, but it did give me a brief episode of the creeps.

Generally speaking, I enjoy Friday the 13th, and not only because the Olsen twins claim it as their birthday. I like it because it’s an opportunity to confront the unknown, and an excuse to feel vulnerable as a result. Don’t we all enjoy being a little bit afraid?

Think roller coasters, scary movies, and… ghosts.

The Wren’s Nest offers plentiful opportunities to be spooked, if one should choose to indulge them. First of all, it’s 137 years old. Generations have been raised here; naturally, a few people (including Mr. Harris) have died here. Though many details of the house and its inhabitants have been recorded and passed from person to person, there’s a lot we don’t know about the place. The upstairs storage room and basement are filled to the brim with mysterious artifacts, which the spook-lover in me can’t wait to get her hands on.

Lain gave me a tour of the basement on my first day here, explaining that some ghost hunters had recently taken an interest in it after a bunch of ceiling lights blew out in succession. Perhaps the unanswered questions it raised prepared me to be paticularlly moved by the following: as I leaned in to marvel at an old lithograph collecting dust near the entrance, the dial on the front spun completely around on its axis.

If there’s such thing as a ‘good day’ to be spooked at the Wren’s Nest, I suppose today’s one of them (I’m leaving the ghost hunters out of this for now), which is why I’ll be going home and leaving Lain here to lock the place up.

Good luck, buddy.

For the uninitiated, we’ve done this twice before in the past couple of months. It’s terrifying. Read about our November and January hunts.

Tonight’s guests are the good people from Ghost Hounds. Stay tuned for live updates / me-shaking-in-my-boots throughout the evening.

8:40 pm – The Hounds are here, and we’ve all been introduced. I do not remember anyone’s name, unfortunately. It’s like my brain goes ———— right after someone says, “And our next Ghost Hound’s name is.”

Every time this gets me. Every time!

Our nameless warriors are taking some preliminary photos with the lights on before things get serious.

Current status–not too skeered yet, but expecting the worst.

9:14 pm – The Ghost Hounds are under my feet. The Wren’s Nest has a very extensive basement that runs under every portion of the house. In some parts, you can see through the floor boards. Maybe that’s why our gas bill is historically ridiculous.

The Harris family added on a kitchen and indoor plumbing between 1895 and 1900. Before then, the kitchen was in the basement. It’s a dirt floor, but you can walk around without worrying about hitting your head under the western half of the house.

On our first ghost hunt, everyone went down to the basement together. I tried to turn on the lights, but all three of the lightbulbs attached to the ceiling fizzled when I tried to turn them on. One, two, three–right in a row.

The lights haven’t worked since.

We’ve fooled with the breakers, different light bulbs… nothing.

The Ghost Hounds have flashlights under there now, and their lights are shining through the floor boards, up into my room–which is dark except for my monitor. Their flash photography is my lightning.

Current status–fine(ish), but feeling like this is the beginning of a horror film.

9:47 pm – Ghost Hounds are still in the basement. If I wander to other rooms in the house it’s a light show, seemingly from nowhere. Try telling yourself it’s just the flash coming through the cracks.

It’s real quiet except for the dog barking incessently and the occasional Marta train passing four blocks away.

Current status–wondering if a diuretic is really the best possible drink for this occasion.

10:59 pm – After a few sticks of rock candy, the Ghost Hounds are back at it, reading the Brer Rabbit stories aloud in hopes of conjuring up some spirits.

Two points for originality!

Current status–eating peanuts and ignoring the scary parts

11:14 pm – Chatting it up with the Hounds. As usual, the ghost hunters are very professional. The difference is, I guess, these guys are a lot less spooky.

Or am I just that much tougher now?

Current status–real cool.

11:43 pm - I guess we’re done? I was ready for an all-nighter!

Too bad everyone just left, and I have to turn out the lights alone.

This is the worst part.

Maybe if I just stay in here it will be light outside soon. I won’t be going to sleep for the next few hours, that’s for sure.

Current status–wide awake and a little disappointed.

See y’all next time, ghost hunters.