Date: Sunday, Jan. 12, 2020
Investigators: Jim, Allie, Brandon Equipment: Digital voice recorders, EDI+ meter, Mel Meter, K2 meter, SB11 and SB7 Spirit Boxes, video camera, laser grid, motion detectors, REM pod, blindfold, noise-cancelling headphones History: Pre-History - Early Dubuque settlers recognize this site is an “enormous mound.” The Native American mound soon becomes the focal point of early settler’s celebrations including the Fourth of July. 1834 - Patrick O’Conner murders his lead mining partner George O’Keaf in Dubuque. Dubuque’s settlers hold a trial with 12 jurors, despite there being no system of justice in the ungoverned Black Hawk Purchase, and the story makes national news. Unsuccessful attempts for a pardon of O’Conner even go to U.S. President Andrew Jackson, and O’Conner is publicly executed on the Native American mound, where he is then buried. 1852 - Leveling the mound on this site when the City grades 7th Street, owner Joseph Gehrig, a Swiss-German immigrant, reveals it to be a burial mound containing Native American remains, artifacts, hunting tools and the remains of Patrick O’Conner in his coffin. Claims: The Smokestack is built on top of a burial mound and is also the site of the first hanging in what became the state of Iowa. Staff have seen Native American men in the bar, a couple in 19th-century clothing and there have been phantom milk smells on the second floor. Other parts of the second floor cause uneasy feelings. |
Audio evidence
Brandon and Jim are having a conversation, and a cough/laugh is caught that is not either one of them.
During a SB7 Spirit Box session in the bar, Jim is talking about the EDI+ meter device lighting up, and a voice says “Green.”
Brandon and Jim are talking about what foot traffic would be like on a Sunday night and who would be going by the bar on a Sunday night. A disembodied male voice says “Demons.” We believe this refers to the spirit’s perspective that people who drink on Sundays are bad, a view of the 19th century, and not a reference to actual demons.
For some reason, lately we have had success in Spiritus and spirit box sessions talking about food with the spirits. Using the Spiritus app on the second floor, we start talking about cheese, and get quite an exchange.
The voices coming through the Spiritus app upstairs were fun-loving, it seemed like. In this clip, we catch spirits passing gas, twice, something we have caught before. One of us notes it sounds like farts, and a voice repeats the word “fart.”
No one is in the basement at this time and we capture a female yelling on the static recorder.
No one is on the first floor at this time, and we catch a female saying something, or maybe sneezing, on the static recorder.
We are all on break in the room with the piano. Jim is in the bathroom and Brandon is talking to Allie. We capture what sounds like two people talking, closer to the recorder, which was right next to the stage.
At the end of the night, we all gathered in the bar to conduct an Estes Method session. In this exchange, Brandon, who is blindfolded and is listening to the spirit box through headphones, says “It’s here, it’s inside, in there and watch out.” Very interesting exchange.
Video evidence
We had just sat down on the couch just to the left on the second floor, and we’re talking. You will then hear a disembodied cat meow come in.
We are all on the second floor investigating, and the HD handheld video camera captures a ball of energy moving from top to bottom. This was the only time an orb like this was caught on camera.
We are in the basement, in a room where the door was closed and held shut by a large nail. The owners said no one had been in the room for more than 40 years. The doorway you see in the video is the doorway back into the workshop. As the video camera pans from the right past the door, all is normal. But when the camera pans back, you will see a white and red light high on the wall. Those lights then come down the wall and streak across the screen.
Photos from the investigation