Holcomb Woods - More Than A Typical Urban Legend

Holcomb Woods has proven itself to be a bit more than a typical ‘Urban Legend’.  Rumors of a bus crash and a strange clearing in the middle of the woods had originally led us to seeking out either the same appearances as everyone has mentioned before, or just our own new cases of experiences that we can hopefully build upon.  Of course we had a tough time disproving any repetitive “haunting” like most rumored urban myths have done to us thus far.

We won’t go so far as to dispel any rumors as being factual since obviously we are not the first paranormal investigation team seeking any type of activity in the woods.  We can go the stretch though in saying that something apparently does exist in the area in question.  We just aren’t too positive at the moment as to what it actually is.

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    On our first visit to Holcomb, we were shocked with how quiet the area was.  It was a fairly humid evening with a full moon and a temperature of about 74° F.  Oddly with these atmospheric conditions there was simply no sound.  You could hear the occasional distant car or truck traveling down the nearby roads, however there were no natural sounds such as crickets, frogs, cicadas or even bats.  We went ahead with our investigation and snapped off a few interesting ‘orb’ like appearances in our cameras however can discern between the possibility of passing vehicles on Route 199 or actual phenomenon.

            We did manage some EVP work that turned out to be a bit more surprising than the photos.  At one point our investigator Chris manned the recorder and stated that any presence was allowed to communicate with our devices and should have no fear in doing so.  At the time of the statement nothing was noted, however, upon further review we did seem to capture what appeared to be loud footsteps walking in heavy boots across the pavement behind where Chris stood.  Nobody on the team was wearing boots of any sort that evening and we were standing in the gravel on the side of the road.       

    The woods altogether give the impression that something or someone could be just as inquisitive to our presence as we are to the existence of theirs.  Regardless of what we could or could have not caught the first evening, we felt somewhat compelled to return to the woods again to see if we could find any absolute evidence that there was an accident there at some time in their history.

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We arrived on our second visit and was somewhat dismayed by other traffic that was in the area.  Putting two and two together, we figured out that showing up on a Saturday evening after the nearby BGSU was back in classes wasn’t the brightest of ideas.  Hey, we’ll humbly admit that we can’t ‘plan’ the perfect attack.  We can just continue to try executing it.

            Outside of the two vehicles that were about ¼ mile back to the west, we hadn’t seen a single vehicle the rest of the evening.  This is where the urban legend started to stick out a bit.  While we still don’t follow the myths for the woods, we can easily agree on following the tale of how to stir up activity and actually having something happen in return.  We noted that according to the legend, if you were to travel east through the woods and do a u-turn and come back towards the west you can sit still and see a pair of headlights ahead of you.

While we did actually experience this, we can’t agree 100% that they were in fact headlights cast by a ghostly school bus full of screaming goblins, yet it really doesn’t make sense in what distance the headlights were in comparison to where they could have possibly disappeared.  After traveling to the spot where they seemed to appear, we noticed that there was nowhere for the lights to have gone.  We were already beyond any cross road or trail next to the woods where a car may have turned to escape our path.  Regardless of if they were paranormal visions of what could have been at one time, or if they were in fact someone on the other side of the woods playing a game of cat and mouse, they did agree to the legend of appearing and then disappearing after we followed the “rules” of the legend itself.

            Visit number three took place after we could assemble the entire team for a quick stop after spending some time in the area visiting the Potter House.  Yes, we’re brave at times with where we investigate, but truth be told, not all paranormal teams agree with urban legends until they’re experienced first hand.

            Upon arrival to Holcomb for the third time, the first strange event that took place actually hit more like a personal warning to the team than it did along the lines of any haunting we’d seen so far.  Cheryl, one of our lead investigators had just opened her camera bag to get ready to go in.  She had noticed that her missing blessed medallion from two investigations prior, was found wrapped about 4 times around the strap of the camera.  Now had it been that she never used the camera until this evening then it might be played off like a coincidental event, but she’d used the camera two more times prior to this current investigation.  It obviously would have appeared.

            EVP number one for Holcomb took place right away.   While talking about the medallion, Chris had made mention that he felt it was a sign of things to come before entering the woods.  Under review we caught a slight growling sound across the recorder while he said this.  We never reviewed evidence on the spot until this third visit to Holcomb Woods.

            Initially Chris, Gerald and myself started our decent into the woods until Chris decided he’d go back to help move the van further off the road.  I told him he should grab a radio before he came back because we didn’t know if we were going to go dark in the woods and of course we didn’t want him to mistake our talking or movement in the woods for anything paranormal.

            Chris walked away from us and it seemed normal to Gerald and I to be sitting back waiting on even the slightest sound that the rest of the team was entering the woods.  All at once I myself was on the edge of needing a diaper change (play of words everyone….I don’t wear diapers).  Across the radio Chris had given his sign of ‘radio check one two one two’ and I believe I had my first out of body experience.  He flat out scared the crap out of me when he yelled it right out.

            After gaining composure, Gerald and I went lights off and stood there in the silence waiting for the rest of the team.  It seemed to be quite a while and everything felt somewhat at peace.  All of a sudden from nowhere we ended up hearing someone in a female voice yell “Hello” in a loud enough voice it seemed to reverberate off the trees.  Gerald and I both flipped lights back on and stood there for a moment trying to figure out exactly where the voice had came in.  I told him it had come from the right side of where we were at and he proceeded to point towards the west.  The west of course happened to be opposite of where I had heard it come from.

            The rest of the evening at Holcomb was pretty much toned down.  Cheryl had her extra recorder in her vest trying to avoid any battery drain that may have taken place.  Oddly, this recorder was turned off and has no way of playing a file unless it’s turned on prior to using it.  She had this turned off and it seemed rather quiet when we performed our own dead time in the woods.  All of a sudden it turned itself on and immediately started to play an investigation she had done a few weeks prior.  Upon listening to my recording of the time this happened, I noticed that there does appear to be reasoning to it taking place.  We did catch what appears to be a disembodied voice trying to utilize her recorder.  We can’t make out what it said and we’re still working at deciphering it, but you can hear her voice being played from the turned off recorder and there is something that seems to yell through it when it’s activated.

            On the trip back towards the road in order to leave, the woods seem to take longer to get out of then to get into.  Altogether we had spent less than 11 minutes in prior to hearing multiple snaps, pops and the ever so easy to remember “hello”.  After the obvious EVP of the greetings to have us stick around, the time frame changed and for what seemed to be about 20 minutes of investigation turned out to be just over an hour.  Upon departure, the voice recorder picked up more of the ‘growl’ and ‘hiss’ sounds as well as one whistle in the distance that I personally heard through my own ears and was able to actually grab from out of the noise of us walking across the broken tree limbs and leaves.

 By John  Heistand