The Koob House

On 19 February 2005 six members of Show Me Paranormal Investigations worked a rented house in Hannibal, Missouri. The report calls it the Koob house. It is an eight-room bungalow in a residential neighborhood. A couple had been renting it for about a year. We arrived at 6:00 pm and started then. Present: William Houser (investigation coordinator), Lisa Newland (case manager), Kim Lovelace, Tabitha Houser, Jim Knutelski, and Chris Murphy (trainee). The report was dated 12 March 2005 and signed by William Houser. Kim Lovelace reviewed it.

This is a private home. The street address is not on this page. The public pin is Hannibal, not the door.

The residents did not know the history of the house. The report says there were no local rumors about the place or the people who had lived there. The prior resident, given in the report only as G.B.D., died in the house in March 2003. He was known for the lawn, the garden, and the flowers. He had retired from the railroad, worked as an insurance agent, owned a sporting-goods business in Hannibal, was a 32nd-degree Mason, and had been a commissioner of the Hannibal Harbor Club.

It was about 31°F, with a wind chill near 25, overcast, and light precipitation. Permission was on file. We mapped the house, took baseline EMF and infrared readings, ran an active sweep, left recorders for a dormant hour with the team out, then made a final sweep.

The residents said the activity started the first night they spent in the house, 3 December 2003. He woke at 1:30 am to what sounded like a child calling, "Nanny, Nanny… Is that you, Nanny? Where are you, Nanny?" Another night, walking to the bathroom, he heard a woman's voice behind him: "Honey, is that you?" He woke his wife. Nothing more happened that night.

They also reported whispering at night, smells of flowers, urine, and body odor, beds made and unmade, clothes tugged, and being flicked on the forehead. She said she saw a tall man standing behind her husband in the doorway of room J, gone before she could speak. He said he saw that same tall man reflected in the television, gone before he could turn around. They described three presences: a tall older man with a strong feeling of sorrow, a little girl, and an older woman. They knew the prior resident had died in the house the year before they moved in. They reported nothing violent, and they did not want anyone removed from the house.

Baseline temperatures ran from about 51°F to the low 70s. No anomalous temperature during the active sweeps. In room H we recorded three EMF spikes we could not tie to a known source. Two of them, 1.7 milligauss, were on a Lutron EMF-822A while we were still mapping, before the first sweep. The third, during the first sweep, maxed a CellSensor meter.

About eight hours of digital audio came off the sweeps and the dormant hour. Nothing of interest.

Low-light video ran in rooms A, H, and F during the dormant hour. Room A had frames we called dust, and others we called bugs. Rooms H and F had nothing.

One hundred twenty-seven stills, film and a digital camera of 4 megapixels, flash on most of them. Many frames had orbs. As a rule we do not accept an orb as proof. Two frames we could not explain. Early in the first sweep, in room A, a bright blue flare, and behind it a vague semi-transparent form that looks as if someone is kneeling behind the sofa. The flare shows in the television across the room. The form does not. Near the end of that sweep, in room J, a flash frame from the 4-megapixel camera. Only the photographer and the two team members in the picture were in the room. The frame shows what looks like the head and shoulders of a fourth person, semi-transparent, with streaks of light, and it looks as if it is moving. That doorway is where a resident said she saw the tall man. The frame was checked for camera error and shown to more than one photographer. No explanation was on the report. Both files are on this case. The living-room frame was taken at 7:58 pm. The close-up was taken at 9:10 pm.

Several of us felt hair brushed or lightly flicked. One investigator, who had not been told the history or the interview, reported a strong impression of an older man attached to the house, and pictures in the mind of trains and flowers. Except for the coordinator and the case manager, the team is not told the history until the watch is over. The prior resident's railroad work and the garden were not confirmed until several days later. Cold spots were felt. They were not confirmed on a thermometer.

Conclusions. Considering the statements of the residents, who are considered reputable and competent, the impressions of the investigators, and the strong nature of the photographic evidence captured here, we feel it is reasonable to believe paranormal activity may be occurring here. The case stays open. Immediate attempts were to be made to return. No follow-up is filed here.

This page is that report, shortened onto the sheet. The opinions in it are Show Me Paranormal Investigations' opinions.