JOHN ANDERSON
Bulletin Staff Writer
Creaking old frames, dripping water, drafts of cold air and bumps in the attic all occur naturally, but they also can be found in the stereotypical haunted house.
These unnerving sounds and shapes can be found among the old buildings and cave at Mountain Village 1890 in Bull Shoals. But the Oates family, who owns and operates the tourist attraction, says they have experienced the supernatural there as well.
Steve Oates, who with brother David and sister Ginger took over operation of the village in October, said he had a run-in with an apparition in the cave that "nobody could deny."
"As I was getting ready for a field trip, I was down in the cave sweeping water out, and when I was in the Diamond Chapel (a room in the cave) I heard a voice say, 'What are you doing?'" he said.
Oates said he turned around and no one was there. On his way out of the cave, he said he heard hundreds of voices whispering, but he radioed family members who said everyone else in the village was busy up front.
Other reported sightings of the ghosts of Civil War soldiers by his brother David and even some customers raised the Oateses' collective eyebrows. Then, when the two brothers and sister were sitting together in the Jordan House ? a building on the property ? and heard the disembodied voice of a child, they decided to seek professional help.
Two nights last week, four members of the Central Arkansas Society for Paranormal Research, or CASPR, answered their call.
The women drew on 10 years' experience in paranormal research and a host of gadgets to ascertain whether the hauntings were otherworldly or mundane and to record evidence of any exceptional thing.
In two nights, they took audio and video recordings and still pictures around the village. Members of CASPR said there is paranormal activity in the village, especially at a building called the Jordan House that was built in 1864 in Monkey Run and an old church built in 1888 in Blue Eye, Mo.
"We captured (pictures of) balls of light known as orbs in the paranormal community," CASPR director Karen Shillings, of Little Rock, said. "We did capture some evidence, but nothing overwhelming."
Going over the audio recordings this week, the researchers also heard whispering voices that were inaudible to the naked ear.
The recorded voices, as well as light anomalies that they say could not have been caused by fireflies, are evidence that paranormal researchers regard as proof of otherworldly phenomena.
"It opened my eyes to some things," Steve Oates said.
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