Berkshire Paranormal Group
Sawyer Mansion Investigation
Whitingham, VT

Pre-Investigation

The Berkshire Paranormal Group was contacted by the owner of a mansion in Vermont known as the Sawyer Mansion. The owner stated that she believed the property that her and her husband purchased recently - and are in the process of completely renovating - is haunted.
During an exchange of emails, phone conversations, face to face meetings and interviews, we felt that this was going to be a investigation well worth conducting.
When speaking with the homeowners, the following claims of the property being haunted were given to us:

• Resident contractor is awaken in the middle of the night to the sound of loud footsteps walking across the floor above him.
• Certain doors in the property would open and close on their own while people are present in the room.
• The lights in the garage of the building would turn on and off on there own.
• Multiple pictures of orbs taken on the premises.
• A women will be seen walking up and down the main staircase.
• The homeowner claimed to see a man watching her on the front porch who was not actually there.
• A friend of the homeowners claimed to see a small girl in the 3rd floor ballroom.

The property's history showed that it was owned by one single family from the time it was built and the family was the Sawyers. The Sawyers were a very prominant family in the Whitingham area during the early and middle part of the 20th century. Another very interesting fact found about the history of this property was that of a murder taking place during the mid 1990s. The stories surrounding the facts of the murder varied from person to person. Multiple searches of the internet turned up only one reference to a murder at the Sawyer Mansion. This was found in the Boston Globe and dated the murder to have happened in the mansion on Dec. 9th 1985. Click HERE to read the Boston Globe article about the murder.

• · It should be first noted that during pre-investigation of the building that all power from the 2nd floor had been completely cut off.
• · EMF sweeps of all those floors showed base line readings of 0.0 milliguess and not EMF fields were found near any outlets, light switches and fuse panels. The only exception was on the second floor, where some EMF fields were detected when standing above light fixtures located on the 1st floor. But these fields were few and weak.
• · While investigating the 3rd floor, Josh and Scott had encountered some disembodied whistling (see personal experience #1) Not long after this Josh was standing in the middle of the Ballroom with his arms crossed and a KII EMF meter switched in the ON position. Josh then noticed out of the corner of his eye the KII flashing repeatedly showing a high EMF reading. Josh then slowly turned his head to look at the meter and saw it continue to flash. He then stated “is that you next to me” and the flashing suddenly ceased and never registered again anywhere on the floor. Josh was holding the KII approximately 3 feet off of the floor. No radio transmissions were being conducted at the time of the occurrence and Josh’s cell phone was turned off.
• No other EMF anomalies were experienced during the course of this investigation.

EMF CONCLUSION:

• Given the fact that no electricity was located on the second floor and up, and base lines were found to be 0.0 milligues we felt that any EMF located during the course of the investigation would be worth looking more into and possibly paranormally related.
• The KII registering an EMF fluctuation - and quite a high one at that - on the third floor at a height of approximately 3 feet from the floor is very substantial given the circumstances. No one natural cause to this fluctuation can be determined or was found during the investigation. It also corresponded with a personal experience happening not long before. This would also lead me to believe that this was quite possibly some sort of paranormal activity taking place.

• Investigators Scott, Josh, John and Paul all were taking digital photographs throughout the course of the investigation. Numerous pictures were taken during all aspects of the investigation and all locations of the house.
• Due to the conditions of the building (being in the process of renovation and being dusty) multiple pictures containing ORBs were captured. None of the orb pictures taken appeared to be caused by paranormal phenomena and were all most likely caused by the dusty condition of the rooms we were working in.
• One picture did contain an anomaly that at this point a natural cause can not be determined. This picture is labeled EPic-001.

PHOTOGRAPHIC CONCLUSION:

• Picture EPic-001 is a picture taken looking in the direction of what we labeled the “evidence” door. The picture contains an anomaly of what appears to be some sort of light streak or reflection going across the middle of the frame. It was first thought upon looking at this picture I would immediately think that this is a flash reflecting off of a near by window or mirror. The only problem with this theory is that there were no windows or mirrors located in or near this room.
• This picture I would have to rate as a Class B+ on a picture rating system. It could be recreated using some sort of reflective surface in that area but again there were none at the time of the picture. At this time no other natural causes can be found to cause this anomaly.

• Investigators Josh and Paul both conducted multiple EVP sessions during the course of the investigation.
• A total of 10 EVPs are thought to have been captured, all ranging from Class A to Class C.
• Some of the more interesting EVPs include:
• During a walk through of the building the client made reference to cleaning up something and right after finishing her sentence and before Paul answered her a voice of a female clearly states “thank you”. Is this a spirit possibly thanking the home owner for cleaning up the mansion?
• In an area of the house where a piece of police evidence tape is still located (possibly left over from the murder investigation) Josh asks “Did you die right here?” and then you can hear the word “shot”.
• While in the 1st floor living room, what sounds like a scream is captured on a recording while Josh and Scott are conducting an EVP session.

"Thank You" ........
"Shot" ................
Scream ...............
"Hectic" ..............
"Glad it's all mine" .
Laugh .................
Moan ..................
"Not" ..................
"No no no" ...........

EVP CONCLUSION:

• The EVPs captured in the residence ranged from a good Class A to weak Class C anomalies. In many cases they did appear to directly answer a question or react to what was being spoken about at that particular time. This would lead me to beleive that we are dealing with a intelligent or spirit haunt opposed to a residual style haunting.
• Given the rural area in which the Sawyer Mansion is located, any stray radio signals would be rare and few in this case.

The temperature was continually monitored through out the location via IR no-contact thermometers and a wireless temperature sensor with no anomalies detected.




10 hours of video footage was captured during this investigation on 2 wireless IR cameras and 2 Sony HI8 camcorders with nightshot.
The wireless IR camera that was watching the fireplace and mantel on the 1st floor would continue to receive interference and lose it’s signal, even though it was only approximately 30 feet from its receiver.

VIDEO CONCLUSION:

Even though the interference in the wireless camera is odd and should not happen with the camera being so close to it’s receiver, natural interference cannot be ruled out.




Only one personal experience occurred during this investigation and it happened to investigators Josh and Scott while investigating on the 3rd floor of the property. While standing around quietly in the dark in the ballroom, both Josh and Scott at the same time could hear what sounded like someone whistling from an adjacent room. Josh heard it and looked at Scott to see if he had heard it and without saying a thing Scott shook his head in a yes manner indicating he just heard the same whistling. Josh got on his radio and asked if any other investigators were in the area of the ballroom and all other people present were not on either the 2nd or 3rd floors. Josh and Scott then went in the direction of the sound and located nothing.

Not long after this happened an EMF anomaly was detected. (See the EMF section of this report)




John performed a dowsing session while in the third floor ballroom. During the course of this session, it was said that contact was made with a female spirit of an unknown age that possibly died at the age of 21. This entire session was video taped for future review if needed.

This investigation proved to be very productive and supplied some good evidence and one good personal experience. Given the long history of the building being in one family, the recent renovations and it being the site of a murder the potential for a haunting was definitely present with this location.
The EMF, Photographic and EVP evidence, along with the one personal experience definitely showed that any spirit activity we were dealing with was most likely an intelligent haunting. Although which spirits we were dealing with is unknown. Possible future investigations could help us find out more about who is haunting this property.
It did not appear that any of the spirits present in the haunting were inhuman or hold any sort of malice toward the current owners and occupants of the house.
I feel that this property is truly haunted and if allowed, the Berkshire Paranormal Group will continue to research this property and hopefully document more evidence of the paranormal at the Sawyer Mansion.

Prepared by J. Mantello - Founder / Lead investigator


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