STEVE'S TAKE

It was the night of the 21^st of December, 2009.  The PIRCOM group arrived at the South Lyon Hotel around 10:00PM.  We met with the manager on duty that night, Joe Kovalcheck.  After a bit of small talk Dee, Dave and Mindy went on a tour of the location with Joe where he pointed out the hotspots of paranormal activity. Meanwhile Leslie and I peformed our own tour of place, taking in the atmosphere and sharing our readings of the location. Since we were not on the tour with Joe, neither of us had any prior knowledge of the history or paranormal stories of the building. Based on Joe's tour we started about setting up our night vision cameras on the upper floor.  The main floor was still full of patrons drinking and partying.  This is when Joe asked us what we were going to do next?  I suggested we get to the basement and set up our video cameras.  We headed down with Joe leading us.  Once we were downstairs we headed outside the building and around to the other side.  Joe unlocked the padlock that kept the outsiders out and the supposed demons in.  Right away Leslie and I got a vision of a little boy.  Remember the basement is padlocked and no one is allowed in without permission. The team headed inside as Joe talked to Dee, the leader of team 1, and Dave and I were getting set up.  I was getting visions of this little boy dressed in shabby clothing with dirt all over his face and hands. Dave helped me set up the camera units and get them running right.  Once we had all the equipment running we were out of there.  We headed out of the basement and back into the main building.  Once we returned to the upper part of the building the two teams went upstairs to begin some independent investigating.

Dave and I split up into our group while Dee, Leslie and Mindy began in the Oak Room where reports of aparitions and object movement had been reported. A trigger object experiment was set up, but remained untouched.  Meanwhile, Dave and I were getting video and audio footage of Joe Kovalcheck talking about the haunting in the South Lyon Hotel.  Then all of a sudden Joe was called away by a workmate to help him with something.  Dave and I decided to take Dee’s advice and check out the Oak Room with the K2 meter.  Team 1 went into the ladies bathroom on the upper floor to check on Leslie’s psychic lead and prior reports of a male spirit who has appeared to staff and patrons in that area.  The bathroom is located at the site of the original staircase right where a man had died during the building fire in the 1970's. While conducting an EVP session in the restroom, Dee experienced what felt like a light brushing on the back of her hand. Asking out if that was the spirit, could it do that again, the spirit complied by causing a static feeling on her hand. Immediatly following this feeling, the walkie talkie Dee had on suddenly outburst with a bunch of static. She radioed to our team to see if our walkie had any interference, but ours had remained silent. While Dave and I were checking out the Oak Room the readings were very high on the EMF detector and the K2 meter.  Then as soon as it started it ended, just like that.  I guess the male spirit took off to follow the girls into the restroom.  That spirit was known to interact with the ladies.  When he was alive he did not have the best reputation and he would beat and abuse his women.  The folklore even says that he once killed a woman but it was never proven. 

The middle of the night was approaching and the bar downstairs was beginning to empty.  Around two o’clock the bar was all cleared out and the employees called it a night.  Now it was time to see if the spirits would be up to talking without all the background noise.  The photos were only yielding orbs and a few questionable objects.  I know that team 1 was getting just about the same.  We were all counting on the audio to produce some EVP’s.  There were many questions at that point still to be answered. I had a few spirits following me around all night.  I decided to get Dave and head downstairs to the main floor.  Once on the main floor Dave and I headed for the kitchen area.  I wanted to see if the spirit of the older man that used to work in the kitchen was still there.  This spirit was reported to have spilled a tub of flour on the floor.  He and other spirits also left messages and footprints on the kitchen floor and stainless steel refridgerator door.  Dave led into the kitchen with the camera taking pictures as he went.  I followed with my digital recorder hoping that the a spirit would talk to me.   By the time I knew it the time was around 3:30AM. 

Dave asked me if he could explore the other side of the main floor.  Once Dave was gone that feeling of someone behind me became more intense.  I was talking to the spirit I felt close to me.  This is when I heard footsteps of an adult coming up behind me.  I looked behind me thinking that it might be Joe, but no one was there.  That’s when my heart started beating faster.  Just at that monument I heard Dave call out for me to come over here there.

Once I got there I found out that what Dave wanted me for was a false alarm. Dave and I finished up the main floor and took a break by the front door of the hotel.  I sat on the bench as I enjoyed a handful of skittles that came from the candy machine.  Dave and I chatted while waiting on team 1 to call us on the walkie talkie.  After a few minutes Dee called us and ask what are situation was.  I told her that we were ready to wrap it up.  She agreed and said they were on their way downstairs.  Team 1 returned with Joe.  Now that we were all gathered around Dee and I worked out a game plan to break down all the cameras and equipment.  The plan was to start breaking down the basement equipment first. 

Everyone headed down to the basement with Joe.  Once we were down there Dave, our Tech Mnager, and I started breaking down and packing away the camera set up.  Then Dee noticed little foot prints in the dirt.  The South Lyon Hotel has a Michigan basement where the floor is all dirt.  I put my digital voice recorder right next to the foot print to get a size of the image and concluded that the prints were made by a tennis shoe the size of an average five or six year old.  There were only a few foot prints in the dirt that covered the floor in that spot.  Most were covered by our foot prints from our earlier set up.  These foot prints were very fresh maybe about a few hours old.   Both Leslie and I agreed that the foot prints belonged to that spirit of the little boy we had seen down there. Because the door always remains locked we knew no one had been down there, especially not a child! Unfortunately, the photos we took could not capture a clear image of the prints. The ones we have were enhanced as much as they could be to show the prints. When we reviewed the video footage from the basement all that was there was a black screen.  If the cameras and VCR were not hooked up right all you would see on the tape would be a gray fuzzy screen.  Then all you would hear would be white noise.  There is nothing like that on that tape.  It had a black screen and no white noise. Is it possible that someone, or something tampered with the cameras or was this simply a technical glitch. We may never be sure. This just adds to the mystery of the basement of the South Lyon Hotel. 

Once we were all packed up and ready to go we made our way out of the basement.  Dave headed up to the 2^nd floor to get the cameras and equipment up there and yelled down that he had just scene a shadow figure dart down the hallway.  Unfortunately, our camera trained on that area had already run out of tape. We were hopeful that the figure made an earlier appearance on our tape, but no evidence of the shadow figure was found, only a ton or orb activity. Once we had all the equipment packed up and ready to go Joe Kovalcheck led us down to the 1^st floor.  This is where we picked up the rest of the equipment and headed out of the building. Once we got on our way I congratulated the team on a great night’s work.  Now that I look back and reflect on the case I am looking forward to returning there in the future for another opportunity to investigate and gather more evidence of the paranormal residing in the South Lyon Hotel.