Trifter

Iron Island (so-called because the area it’s in is surrounded completely by railroad tracks) is a small neighborhood in the heart of Buffalo. The building was originally constructed as a church in the last part of the 1800’s. In the early 1900’s it was converted into a funeral parlor, it switched hands in the funeral business and in 2000 it became the museum it is today. 

We arrived at Iron Island around 6:30 in the evening and started to unload our gear and other things from the back of my car. We were half an hour early (they had me drive, they should have known we were going to get there early) so we stood out in the parking lot, smoked a few cigarettes, took some pictures in front of the building, and of course once me and Eric start making asses of ourselves our guide walks out and greets us. She introduced herself as Linda, the owner of the building and the head of the historical society that runs the museum portion of their operation. She gave us a quick tour of the building and introduced us to our guide for the evening, Jen. We set up in the kitchen area and then started the investigation. We started in the room known as the “child’s room” near the front  of the building.  We seated ourselves, started rolling with our digital audio recorders and started asking questions. After about 30 seconds Nate’s recorder, brand new that week, shuts off. It had been sitting on the table in front of us brand new batteries. I checked my recorder on the other side of the room and found that it was still working properly, made a note of it and we went on asking questions until Nate’s recorder shut itself off again. After we got it on again we headed one room over to the military room. The military room contains a history of service men and women from the buffalo area, and other artifacts from every major conflict in the 19th century. After about 20 minutes in room we decided to split into two groups, Nate and I headed into the altar room one room over and sat down. As soon as Nate sat down he seemed to slip, as if a weight had pushed him back, he shot up out of the chair and nearly halfway across the room. I asked what had happened and he said it felt like a child had sat jumped up and sat down in his lap. He remained standing for the rest of out time in the room and we asked several questions. I feel I should note my extreme discomfort in this room. There’s a black dress from the Civil War era that made me feel extremely uncomfortable. It was beautifully made from a black silk like material but there was something offsetting about it. 

We left the room and headed back to the military room where the rest of the group was, when we were exiting  the room I happened to look in the mirror that was outside the door to the altar room, I saw Nate in front of me, myself, and behind me a black figure about my height following me out. I told Nate and he said he felt like someone had been watching him while we were in the room but didn’t want to say anything. We head back to the other room, link up with everyone else. We head out to the garage for a smoke and talk to Jen a little bit about her various experiences in the building. After the smoke had cleared from the garage we headed back inside.

Nate and I went down into the cellar and after looking around in the dank, dirt floored room we decided to take a seat in a few folding chairs that had been set up around a makeshift table made from a microwave box. We set our digital audio recorders down on the box and Nate began to ask taunting questions while I watched the K2 meter spike up and down and walked around taking readings with my own personal EMF gauge. When we started getting spikes on the K2 and separate hits on the EMF gauge i had in my hand we went upstairs and retrieved the rest of the crew so they could witness the fluctuations as well.  By this time Jen was sleeping on the couch upstairs and we had the run of the place to ourselves. We went around the whole basement with the full crew and we entered a small room that appeared to be in the middle excavation. As we looked around in the small trench that had been cut out, we heard a quiet female voice say “Please say a command” we all snapped around and instantly every light was on one location. Nick had had his cell phone in his pocket and had hit the voice command button on the side. After some ribbing and laughter we started to walk out of the room and back into the main basement we heard was sounded like a heard of elephants running above us. We all paused dead in our places and listened as the footsteps go down the hallway from the kitchen down in the direction of the front doors. We bolted upstairs and into the main hallway, checked all the rooms and found that no one besides Jen, who was sleeping on the couch, was on the upper level of the museum. The upper level of the location is an L shape with the front door located at the top of the tall part of the L and the hallway with the door into the kitchen area on the small of the L. After verifying that there was no way that someone could have slipped back into the kitchen or out the front door (it’s padlocked) we woke Jen up and asked her if she had heard anything. She seemed genuinely shaken that this had happened not 10 feet away from her and she hadn’t awoken because of it. We all stepped out for a well deserved cigarette after that and then back inside and once again to the basement.

With the whole crew, including Jen, in the basement again we took our seats around the box again and started taunting the spirit that resides in the basement. Jen had told us that it was a very reclusive male spirit who liked to hang out in the corner of the basement where people felt like they were being watched and it was always a good 10 degrees cooler even in the summer. It’s worth pointing out that there IS an older style power cable that runs straight through this corner, but it also runs the length of the basement and the feeling of being watched only occurs in this corner. We spent about the next hour or so in the basement asking questions and trying to provoke a response for our digital audio recorders to capture. We went back up to the military room after a while and sat back down in the chairs up there. I let my right arm swing down the side of the chair and noticed that the space between me and randy was at the very least 5 degrees cooler than the rest of the room. I grabbed my EMF gauge and took a reading from the area. As soon as the probe entered the cold spot the meter spiked up to 5. I took it out of the area and tried it on the other side, then brought it back to the same end, the meter spiked back up again. I asked Nate, who was across from me to snap a picture where I had my hand and as soon as he brought the camera up, the meter bottomed out to normal and the unusual cold vanished. Apparently who/whatever was between me and Randy was feeling camera shy. I stood up and went around the back of the chair with the EMF gauge again and found the field half behind my chair, as if it were hiding from the camera. 

We headed back out to the garage after some more time asking questions and taking pictures. Nick and Nate elected to stay inside this time and while we were sitting in the garage we started to hear loud, but muffled, banging sounds. We had passed a drag strip on the way down which appeared to have a large event going on so I attributed it to that and stepped outside to flick my cigarette and watch some of the fireworks go off. The only problem with that was that there was no fireworks, no banging sounds at all coming from anywhere outside the building. I stepped back in and said something to Randy about how it was odd and then went back to talk to Nate. I found him in the kitchen area of the location with Nick and they both appeared to be listening intently to something. I asked what they were listening to and was quickly shushed as the banging started up again. Being closer to the sound we determined it was coming from the attic of the museum. We went into the only room with access to the attic and the banging stopped. Eric climbed up the ladder and stuck his head into the attic and stuck a recorder up in the upper level and we went back to the military room for some more EVP work. It was at this point that Randy saw a black figure, around 5′9 walk past the doorway of the room we were in, and then peek in several times. After looking more closely at the items in the glass cases around the room we sat down and asked a few questions. Nate’s camera makes a very loud high pitched beep when it turns on, this sound startled Jen so Nate turned around and said “I’m sorry” very clearly, everyone in the room heard him and what he said, but when we played back the audio, you hear Nate’s voice say “I’m scared” very clearly. I had never encountered this before on an investigation so needless to say I was pretty excited about catching this. As we discussed what could have caused this change our conversation was interrupted by a rather clear sound of a small child crying. Dead silence enveloped the room as we listened to this sound. Over and over again we heard the clear, although quiet, crying.  Nothing was said when the sound ended, no questions as to if someone had heard something, no speculation as to what the sound was. We simply walked out of the room when the crying stopped, collected the audio recorder from the attic, and made our preparations for the drive home. We said our goodbyes to Jen and thanked her for her time and helped, packed our gear into the back of my car, and piled in for the journey back to our respective homes.

Everyone fell asleep in the car on the way home except for me (thank god since since I was the one driving). I was left to think about the experiences of the evening with only the sound of the engine to respond to my thoughts. The crying stuck in my mind as the most disturbing event of the evening. We went to a local coffee shop once we were back in Albion and we sat discussing the night over coffee and donuts. No one had an explanation for the crying. I don’t recall anyone even offering an alternate possibility for it. Once the coffee had ran out we again got in the car, dropped Nick off at his house, and went back to Randy and Eric’s where I immediately found some couch space and fell into a very deep, very long slumber. I’ll never forget what happened that night in Buffalo. I still listen to the audio files I have on my laptop from time to time, I look over the pictures wondering if I’ve missed something the first thousand times I looked at them. I’m planning another trip back to Iron Island in November. We’ll be better prepared this time, we’ll remember what has been, and in the back of our minds hope that it happens again when we’re ready for it with a camera, an EMF gauge, or an audio recorder. I’ll be sure to write another article on my next trip there, until that time I only hope that the permanent residents of Iron Island decide to stick around, and save their energy for a good show in November.