INVESTIGATION OF MILITARY-OWNED RESIDENCE AT WARREN AFB, CHEYENNE,
WYOMING.
SATURDAY JANUARY 7 2006.
Courtesy photo, U.S. Air Force
Warren Air Force Base is the oldest continually-active military
installation in the continental United States. It began life back in
1867 as Fort D.A. Russell as a home to the U.S. cavalry, and today
houses over one hundred strategic and tactical nuclear missiles.
Needless to say, security is extremely high at Warren and these
are folks who take things very seriously indeed – they are not
fanciful, or prone to making up stories of “ghosts and goblins”. That
said, the base personnel are very open about Warren’s haunted history
and it has been the subject of several publications.
Before moving on to the specifics of our case, I will first outline
some of the more interesting paranormal occurrences to be reported at
this site. It is worth noting that base personnel actually keep a
fairly weighty log-book of ghostly occurrences, adding to it each time
a new incident is reported.
By far the most common sightings are those of cavalrymen dating from
the 19th century. Base personnel frequently report sightings of cavalry
troopers and officers, and some have communicated with the Air Force
personnel. During the 1980s (according to Matt Cox of the 90th
Communications Squadron) , Staff Sergeant Edward Davis encountered a
cavalry officer who, when Davis greeted him with “good evening”,
responded with “howdy”. He then vanished.
One of the older houses on base was home to a service family whose
daughter awakened in the night to see a cavalry officer standing in her
play room. Similar tales abound from houses in this old section of the
base. One property is even known informally as “the ghost house”
because of the frequent disturbances there. A captain once lived here
and was killed falling from a second-storey window while trying to
escape, when his family came home early to find him in bed with his
mistress upstairs. This captain has been reported in the ghost house by
numerous inhabitants over the years, primarily in the room that once
housed his office.
Another romantic indiscretion took place in the 1890s when an officer
was transferred to another post and left without informing his
mistress. The lovesick woman committed suicide, and her ghost has been
seen walking around the upper floor of one of the base houses.
Another home on-base is haunted by the apparition of a young girl. When
the residents were away on a recent vacation, the neighbors saw her
staring out of the front window. The residents have two sons and no
girls.
Warren has its’ own cemetery, located next to the officers’ quarters.
According to reports from base security, a veiled woman dressed in
black has often been seen lurking in the graveyard. When guards
approach her, she disappears.
Security officers constantly drive out to the missile silos to perform
checks, and several have reported seeing Indian braves riding on
horseback on the prairie. The family camp area, which is located within
spitting distance of the home we would be investigating, was the scene
of a particularly heinous crime – cavalrymen raped and then bludgeoned
to death a Native American woman there. Her screams and cries have been
reported to base security forces on several occasions, but when patrols
are dispatched to the creek to investigate nothing is ever found.
At the general's quarters, former homeowners said a cavalryman and his
dog haunt the building. Whenever a new general moves in and tries to
remove a certain picture frame from the attic wall, he is guaranteed
nights filled with eerie noises -- complete with a dog barking, until
the frame is hung back in its original place.
The base is home to the USAF Intercontinental Ballistic Missile museum,
which is very haunted according to the curator. The security system
disarms itself frequently and the door unlocks and opens itself. Lights
turn on and off, and the chandeliers swing when nobody else is in the
building. The elevator has been rendered unusable because of the
frequency with which it traps visitors between floors, but mechanics
have been unable to find a cause for it. Several police dog handlers
admitted that their dogs refuse to enter the attic. Bemused museum
staff nicknamed the ghost “Jeffrey” and say they have learned to live
with him.
Before I advance to the specifics of this case, it is important to note
that we have the utmost respect for the security practices of the
United States Air Force and will not divulge any information regarding
our means of entry to the base. Suffice to say that we have changed the
names of the residents living in the property under investigation, and
will not divulge their address or any personal details whatsoever. They
desire no publicity and we will respect their wishes.
Paul and Jane moved into their property in July of 2005. It is a
two-storey semi-detached residence owned by the military. Paul is a
serving member of the USAF and Jane works in the medical field. They
have a son that we’ll call David who is eight years old. Although
purely subjective, it is the unanimous opinion of the investigative
team that we are dealing with normal, well-adjusted people who are
dealing with an unusual situation. We do not believe that they are
imagining things or attempting to defraud us, nor do they seem to be
highly-strung or superstitious. It is also safe to assume that the Air
Force would not allow such people to work with nuclear weapons.
We were unable to track down the former occupants, but did find out
that the only problem the neighbors are having is that their toilet
seat raises itself up when nobody is home. They have reported no
apparitions or other associated phenomena.
On August 20 2005, Jane was walking down the staircase when she
encountered a Native American male aged somewhere between forty and
fifty years old. He had a jowly face which looked “very disapproving,
like he had caught me with my hand in the cookie jar”. The man’s hair
was long and thinning, oily black and tied back. He was wearing a
t-shirt, but Jane could not remember what kind of pants and footwear he
had on. Jane screamed and ran into the bathroom, locking the door. She
insists that she could hear a young female voice crying and screaming
while she was locked in there. As noted earlier, outside the home is
the family camp ground (formerly White Rock creek) from where we have
numerous reports of a female screaming and crying.
In September, Paul came home from duty and noticed a dark human-shaped
shadow standing in the front window. When he entered the house, nobody
was present, but Paul did witness a small black shadow (“dog-sized”)
move down the hallway at high speed, make a sharp ninety-degree left
turn into the kitchen, and then disappeared through the closed and
locked back door. No animals were present in the home at the time. It
is a matter of official record that the military police were called out
for a possible home intrusion and swept the house from top to bottom,
finding nothing. On departing, the sergeant told Paul that this was
“not an unusual situation” at Warren.
During November, the eight year-old son David was terrified one night
by the apparition of a Caucasian male of indeterminate age standing
behind his chair in the bedroom. I immediately separated David from his
parents to question him alone. He gave me a very precise description of
the man in his room, which tallied precisely with what he had described
to his parents when I questioned them later. David described the man as
having grey hair and a long beard, with a modern-style blue work shirt
and blue jeans. The man was a “nice guy, he was kinda smiling”. David
stated that he walked across the room to the window and disappeared.
Since this occurrence, David refuses to separated from his parents,
sitting outside the toilet door when his mom is inside and demanding
that he sleep with his parents. Since disturbances in the home worsened
in December, Jane and Paul refuse to come downstairs for water alone at
night – they travel in pairs within their own home.
Over the past six weeks, footsteps are often heard on the staircase
during the night. Cupboard doors and drawers in the kitchen open and
close by themselves and can be heard slamming at night when the family
is in bed. One morning in December, Paul and Jane came downstairs to
find an unknown material smeared all over their refrigerator.
The substance is brown and red, and appears to spell “Go Now”
in the opinion of the homeowner. The substance had a “sweet smell” and
Paul spent the morning going through the contents of the kitchen,
trying to find something to match this material in the kitchen
cupboards – peanut butter, jam, and other substances were tried, but
none looked remotely similar to whatever was smeared on the fridge
door. A sample has been retained for future analysis.
Paul and Jane have recently acquired two dogs who have started to stare
into thin air and also to chase an invisible “something” around the
bedroom. Objects have begun to disappear, sometimes permanently (some
cookware) and sometimes to return in a different room (a hammer). On
one occasion a candle was burning when Paul came home, but Jane had not
lit the candle when she left. Cold spots are frequent, with Paul
describing the atmosphere as feeling “like a meat locker” several
times.
Having described the phenomena that are reported, it is worth noting
what has not occurred. So far, there have been no rappings or knockings
on walls of the home. No olfactory phenomena whatsoever has been
reported. No voices have been heard within the house. The occupants
deny having nightmares or unusual dreams.
The investigative team arrived on-site at four in the afternoon. It was
an exceptionally windy day, which meant that any “unusual” noises would
probably have to be discounted right off the bat. Base weather reported
wind gusts of up to 50mph.
After a brief tour and supper, the investigation proper kicked off at
around 7pm. The entire upper floor of the house was wired with
microphones, video cameras (including night-vision) and thermometers.
Control objects were placed in the location of the apparition sighting
in David’s room. I took baseline EMF readings and found the entire
house to be normal and virtually inert, just the usual EMF spikes from
the fridge, microwave, lighting and outlets. EMF levels remained normal
across the board all throughout the night.
Interestingly enough, the temperature upstairs remained 4-6 degrees
Farenheit colder than downstairs, all through the night (70-72
downstairs, 64-66 upstairs).According to Paul and Jane, this was the
reverse of normal – typically the upstairs is extremely hot and the
downstairs is cooler.
Observers were posted in the child’s bedroom, on the stairs, and
downstairs throughout the night. The only unusual occurrence was a
window opening seemingly by itself in the master bedroom (it was not
open when I swept the room for EMF earlier in the evening) at 22:10pm.
Once closed, the window stayed shut all night.
None of the control objects were moved overnight. Although there
were slightly unusual tapping sounds emanating from the child’s
bedroom, the howling winds mean that this cannot be regarded as
paranormal in origin – future investigation on a calm night should help
settle the matter. One investigator experienced an uneasy feeling while
in the doorway of David’s bedroom, but this was not corroborated by any
objective evidence – all readings stayed normal. The same investigator
says that the bed seemed to be “tapping” or “vibrating” slightly, but
again it must be noted that the winds hammering the house were
extremely strong and were rattling the windows.
In conclusion, we would like to return to the property next month to
conduct a follow-up investigation. Paul and Jane state that the
disturbances worsen when they are experiencing a period of domestic
upheaval (even arguing over “something stupid”) and also over the
full-moon period. While there is no scientific reason for assuming that
the lunar cycle has any affect at all upon paranormal phenomena, we
will try to time our next visit to coincide with the full moon to see
if their theory is borne out. RMPRS packed up and left in the pre-dawn
hours and looks forward to returning to Warren Air Force base at a
future date.
