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The Harvard Exit Theater

The Harvard Exit Theater in Seattle is one of Washington’s more publicized ‘haunted’ locations. In the past it has received media attention and been investigated by several paranormal groups, including AGHOST. During AGHOST's research of the building's history it came to light that some of the stories linked to the Harvard Exit have been portrayed and retold inaccurately. I thought it would be good to tell a few of the stories, as they were retold to us by former theater employees; as well as one that had not been told publicly before.

The Hanging Woman

One story that has been told and reenacted by the media is of a theater employee seeing the apparition of a hanged woman on the third floor. According to the previous theater manager who was on site during the event, this is not what really happened. While the manager was in the main lobby one evening he heard the upstairs office door open and close, followed by a loud scream and running. He leapt up and ran toward the stairs to find out what had happened and met one of the floor staff half way up. She was shaking and saying “I’m never going up there alone again” over and over. When she had calmed down she told the manager that she felt like someone was in the hall with her. She turned to see a ghostly woman in a flowing dress hovering about two yards behind her. She did not see a head on the woman’s body, but never reported that she saw a hanging woman.

The Lady in the Lobby

Another story that has been retold inaccurately and seems to have exaggerated claims of other sightings is that of a former theater manager. This is the story as she tells it.

One night around 5pm, while opening the theater as usual, she opened the doors to the lounge and noticed a fire burning in the fireplace. She was shocked because there was no one in the building, and all personnel had been instructed to never leave a fire lit without supervision. Then as she entered the lounge she noticed movement to the left of the fireplace. Her eyes were drawn to a woman seated in one of the high backed wooden chairs next to a table and lamp. The lamp was on and she saw that the woman was wearing a calf-length floral print dress and had her hair pulled up in an old-fashioned style that framed her face. The woman turned toward the theater manager, looked her straight in the eyes and faded away. This was the only time she saw the apparition, or a fire mysteriously lit in the lobby.

An untold story

A previous theater manager also relayed a story told to him by a long time projectionist of the Harvard Theater. This story had not previously been told to the public as the witness did not want to talk about his experience. The projectionist was sitting in the first floor projection booth showing a film. There was a stool that sat between the two projectors for when he had to make a change over between the machines. At this time he was off sitting in a more comfortable chair as the movie ran, when he noticed that the stool had begun to vibrate. As he continued to watch it seemed to be doing a little dance. It then stood on one leg and began to spin around; then it stopped and didn’t move again.

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More About AGHOST

We occasionally receive emails from folks asking for more information about AGHOST and what it is that we do. There is quite a bit information about our organization on our website, but there are many interesting aspects to AGHOST that are not mentioned on the website or blog. So I thought I would write a bit about AGHOST (from my perspective) and what it's all about.

First, The Basics

The AGHOST group was founded in October, 2001, and although it did not originate as such, it is currently operating as a 501(c)(4) non-profit organization within the state of Washington (USA). We are a volunteer-based, membership-supported organization with (currently) around 60 members. We provide investigation and research services primarily within Western Washington, but have conducted investigations all over the US, Canada and Europe as well. You can learn more about AGHOST's services on our services page.

Investigations, Walkthroughs and Expeditions

AGHOST regularly organizes various research-related events. We categorize these events as either an Investigation, a Walkthrough or an Expedition.

• Investigation - An all-out paranormal investigation at a potentially haunted location.


• Walkthrough - A pre-investigation visit to the client's home or business. During this time the investigators will typically collect some baseline measurements and conduct the interview.


• Expedition - Expeditions often occur at cemeteries or other uncontrolled areas where our team members can get together and have fun in a less formal environment. Data is often collected during these outings, but individuals are not typically required to complete a report.

Our investigation teams include AGHOST members that are trained in a particular role. The team roles include the Tech who operates the equipment, the Observer who helps document the investigation, and the Psychic who documents any psychic impressions they receive. The group works as a team, but each member is responsible for collecting particular types of information and completing an individual report. This allows us to collect a wide range of information about a potentially haunted location.

The Psychic

As previously mentioned, AGHOST utilizes qualified psychics who document their impressions during an investigation. We have a PSI Director who is responsible for maintaining the protocol to be used on an investigation, and also certifies and prepares new psychics to utilize their talent in the field. Unlike the technical and observer roles, there is no "psychic training", so to speak. Instead, psychic classes are offered that help our members develop their abilities, and in some cases allow our own PSI Director to help assess and prepare new psychics for our investigations. These classes are open to all members (even the Tech Director), regardless of whether or not the member wishes to participate in investigations.

The psychic on an investigation must also complete a report and disclose all impressions they note during the investigation. Regardless of how some groups may feel about the use of psychics in an investigation, many of our clients enjoy their presence and find their impressions very useful. Utilizing both techs and psychics allows us to collect a great deal of information, and create a more complete profile of a potentially haunted location.

Since I'm the Technical Director I'm really not the best one to comment on the psychic role, but hopefully that was fair enough for a brief summary. If not, be rest assured that Merlyn (our PSI Director) will probably put a curse on me or suck out all my blood or something. Nothing new here at AGHOST.

Technical Stuff

Similar to many other research groups, we also utilize a myriad of technical equipment during an investigation. This includes photographic, audio and video equipment as well as a number of different types meters to quantify a particular aspect of the environment - such as various EMF (AC and DC) meters, temperature/thermocouple devices, humidity meters, barometric pressure meters as well as data-logging equipment for long-term monitoring.

Aside from electronic devices, we've also built a number of unique software tools and online services that assist us in the investigation and post-investigation workflow. Many of these tools I've already spoken about in-depth in this blog. These tools assist us in collecting information efficiently, fulfilling our reporting requirements and archiving our data for easy access later on.

Research

The AGHOST team also includes a Research Director who helps define and guide research-oriented projects within the group. The research tasks vary from property research, to long-term studies such as psychical research or collecting and correlating geographic, geomagnetic and space weather information for a large number of investigations. Research meetings occur usually about once a month and are open to all members.

Board of Directors

AGHOST is managed by a Board of Directors. All the politics and management of the group occurs within the monthly board meetings and via email. The job of the board is to manage all aspects of AGHOST and assure we meet our stated goals. All of our board members are volunteers. AGHOST has no paid board members, but we try to do as much as possible with the few resources we have.

Only board members may vote on proposals, but board meetings are open to the general membership. The board also has a non-voting position called the Member at Large whose purpose is to be the voice of the general membership, and present the board with questions and concerns on behalf of a particular member or group of members. Our Member at Large also serves as a sort of welcome party for new members just getting started in AGHOST.

We currently have a very active board, all of whom are very hard-working individuals dedicated to making AGHOST a better group. We don't always agree, and we're not always right (well, except for me), but I can honestly say that the board does a pretty damn good job overall.

Fun Stuff

AGHOST is more than just a research group, we are a small community of diverse individuals. And as such many individuals will organize official and unofficial social events for folks to enjoy. These include official events such as the yearly picnic and Halloween party, as well as other events such as "movie nights" and occasionally even out-of-town events. AGHOST maintains an internal calendar and messageboard to post these events. Most anyone may do so as long as they adhere to AGHOST's non-discrimination and other conduct policies.

How to Get Involved

AGHOST public meetings are normally held every other Sunday. These meetings are always open for guests and friends to visit regardless of whether they wish to become a member. A New Members Meeting typically occurs after the first meeting of the month, and includes an orientation and some paperwork to initiate folks into the group. After initiation, folks wishing to participate on investigations will be required to attend training classes before they will be allowed to shadow other experienced investigators during a walkthrough or investigation.

Official dates for the AGHOST Meetings can be found on the public calendar.

Individuals who are not local to the Seattle area may still join AGHOST via the AGHOSTOnline.org website. AGHOSTOnline members have access to all of our online resources and archives.

More Information

I hope this gives everyone a bit of a taste of AGHOST. If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to send an email to aghost@aghost.us.

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We Are Living In A Material World

Guest Article: Posted on behalf of AGHOST member Jody C.

The question has come up a few times in past months whether or not sellers and/or realtors are required to tell potential home buyers that a property may be haunted. Going by what I have studied (I’m a fledgling realtor), I'd say no.

Realtors should provide a potential buyer with an Abstract of Title, which summarizes all public records regarding a particular parcel, lists any transfers of ownership and divisions of property. If the property has ever had a lien or other encumbrance associated with it, that will also be shown in the Abstract of Title.

Sellers are required to disclose all Material Facts about their property, defined as:

"Information that substantially adversely affects the value of the property or a party’s ability to perform its obligations in a real estate transaction, or operates to materially impair or defeat the purpose of the transaction."

While the following are excellent sources for creating residual energy and/or hauntings, they are NOT considered to be Material Facts and therefore are not required to be disclosed to a potential buyer:

"The fact or suspicion that the property, or any neighboring property, is or was the site of a:

• murder, suicide or other death
  
• rape or other sex crime
  
• assault or other violent crime
  
• robbery or burglary
  
• illegal drug activity
  
• gang-related activity
  
• political or religious activity, or
  
• other act, occurrence, or use not adversely affecting the PHYSICAL condition of or title to the property."
  

This is all according to the realtor's code [RCW 18.86.010(9)].

So, unless a haunting is causing the building’s foundation to shift, the timbers to rot or the plaster to continually peel, it seems the chance that a buyer will be told ahead of time that their dream home comes equipped with an afterlife tenant is slim.

Note that this is a generalization. Some states require that if a buyer poses a direct question to a seller or Realtor about whether or not a death occurred on the property, they must answer honestly and to the best of their knowledge. When in doubt, though, ask a real estate attorney and they will let you know about your rights to full disclosure.

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Understanding EXIF

In recent years, many paranormal enthusiasts have adopted digital devices as their primary means to collect audio, video and still photographs. Digital cameras, in particular, have taken hold as the dominant format for the hobbyist photographer as well as the professional - despite their rocky start as pixel-mangling orb collectors. In this article I'm going to discuss a commonly used aspect of the digital photograph, specifically the metadata that is embedded in nearly all of the digital photographs we see today.

Metadata specifications were designed to provide a standard way of embedding important information within a file to better facilitate the sharing and distribution of that media file. EXIF (Exchangeable Image File Format) is one type of metadata, but not the only type, commonly embedded in digital photographs. The EXIF specification includes a number of tags for storing specific bits of information about a media file. XMP (EXtensible Metadata Platform) is another example of metadata that can be inserted into a digital photograph and other media types.

Extracting Metadata Information

There are a number of applications available that can extract and display EXIF and other metadata information within an image. Image editing programs, for example, often include functionality to display some or all of this data. One need only to use Google to find an program that will suit their needs. For this article, I will be using the exiftool command-line utility to extract and write metadata. Exiftool can typically be obtained on most any system that includes Perl.

Example: Using exiftool to print out all non-binary metadata about an image (some output snipped for brevity):

  me@linux:~/test> exiftool -a -u -g1 original.jpg
  ... Snipped ...

  ---- IFD0 ----
  Image Description               :
  Make                            : SONY
  Camera Model Name               : DSC-F828
  Orientation                     : Horizontal (normal)
  X Resolution                    : 72
  Y Resolution                    : 72
  Resolution Unit                 : inches
  Modify Date                     : 2006:04:15 20:55:48
  Y Cb Cr Positioning             : Co-sited
  ---- ExifIFD ----
  Exposure Time                   : 1/30
  F Number                        : 2.0
  Exposure Program                : Program AE
  ISO                             : 100
  Exif Version                    : 0220
  Date/Time Original              : 2006:04:15 20:55:48
  Create Date                     : 2006:04:15 20:55:48
  Components Configuration        : YCbCr
  Compressed Bits Per Pixel       : 8
  Exposure Compensation           : 0
  Max Aperture Value              : 2.0

  ... Snipped ...

Spotting Edited Photos

When a photo is modified, some of this metadata information may be altered or removed - and sometimes new information is added. Knowing some of the tags that various image editing applications may add to a photo can help one in determining if the photograph has been edited. A good example is the popular Photoshop application, which often embeds a number of its own tags in a modified image. Unfortunately, the absence of altered metadata tags is not always a reliable means of proving that an image has not been modified. Since, as we'll see later, one could simply "fix" the metadata after a photo has been altered so that it looks just like the original.

The embedded thumbnail image may also provide some clues about the original image. Many modern digital cameras embed a thumbnail image within the larger image. These embedded images are typically used by various file browsing applications, like Windows Explorer or Konqueror, to display a thumbnail of the larger image when browsing your photo collection. Interestingly, some image editing applications do not update the embedded thumbnail image when saving the image. Thus, one may often view the thumbnail to get a better idea of what the original image looked like before it was edited.

The following command will extract the embedded thumbnail image and copy it to a file called thumb.jpg. You could then view thumb.jpg and compare it to the original.

  me@linux:~/test> exiftool -b -ThumbnailImage modified.jpg > thumb.jpg

The Trouble With Metadata

In many ghost hunting books I've read, I have often seen EXIF and other metadata compared to a negative produced by 35mm film. The purpose is typically to suggest that while a negative can help verify the authenticity or correctness of the developed image, the EXIF metadata can serve a similar function for the digital format. Unfortunately, the reality is that quite often this is not the case. While still valuable information for analyzing digital photographs, the trouble with most metadata is that this information can be manipulated as easily as the digital photograph itself.

Example: Altering metadata

Let's say we have a digital image called original.jpg captured using a digital SLR camera. We then make a copy of the image, modify it and call it modified.jpg.

Original Photo

Modified Photo

Depending on the application used to edit the image, the EXIF data may be changed, added to or sometimes completely removed. Popular applications such as Photoshop or the GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) may add their own metadata to an image while preserving much of the original data.

Using the exiftool and diff utilities, one could type to following command to view the changes in metadata between the two image files:

  me@linux:~/test> diff <(exiftool -a -u original.jpg) <(exiftool -a -u modified2.jpg)
  7a8,11
  > JFIF Version                    : 1.1
  > Resolution Unit                 : inches
  > X Resolution                    : 72
  > Y Resolution                    : 72
  65,67c69,70
  < Modify Date                     : 2006:04:15 20:55:48
  < Thumbnail Offset                : 2498
  < Thumbnail Length                : 15105
  ---
  > Thumbnail Offset                : 2484
  > Thumbnail Length                : 7653
  73c76
  < Thumbnail Image                 : (Binary data 15105 bytes, use -b option to extract)
  ---
  > Thumbnail Image                 : (Binary data 7653 bytes, use -b option to extract)

I realize that this output probably looks a bit cryptic to those who are not familiar with the diff utility, but I'll explain what it all means. The first thing one might notice from this output is that, surprisingly, very little metadata was actually changed by the image editing program. The application did, however, add a new metadata group called JFIF and the Modify Date tag has been removed. The other data, such as thumbnail information, is not as critical since one would need both the original and the modified file in order to see that this data has changed.

This is just one example. Other image editing applications will add, modify or delete different metadata - leaving different "fingerprints" on the altered file. Test this out for yourself. If you find anything interesting, please send me an email and let me know.

Now, to fix modified.jpg so that the metadata matches original.jpg. What we will end up doing is copying the metadata from the original photo to the modified photo. The problem is that this process will also overwrite the embedded thumbnail image with the one from the original file, so we will first need to save the thumbnail from the modified image so we can re-embed it later:

  me@linux:~/test> exiftool -b -ThumbnailImage modified.jpg > thumb.jpg

Now, copy all the metadata from the original to the modified image:

  me@linux:~/test> exiftool -TagsFromFile original.jpg -all:all modified.jpg
      1 image files updated

Re-embed the thumbnail image saved from the modified image:

  me@linux:~/test> exiftool '-ThumbnailImage<=thumb.jpg' modified.jpg
      1 image files updated

Rip out the JFIF tags added by the image editing program:

  me@linux:~/test> exiftool -JFIF:All= modified.jpg
      1 image files updated

If Photoshop was used, these tags can also be removed as well:

  me@linux:~/test> exiftool -Photoshop:All= modified.jpg
      1 image files updated

Now, let's compare the images again:

  me@linux:~/test> diff  <(exiftool -a -u original.jpg)  <(exiftool -a -u modified.jpg)
  55,56c55,56
  < Thumbnail Offset                : 2498
  < Thumbnail Length                : 15105
  ---
  > Thumbnail Offset                : 2502
  > Thumbnail Length                : 7653
  62c62
  < Thumbnail Image                 : (Binary data 15105 bytes, use -b option to extract)
  ---
  > Thumbnail Image                 : (Binary data 7653 bytes, use -b option to extract)

There is now little difference between the original and altered photo, and certainly nothing left that we could use to identify fraud. Attributes related to the thumbnail have changed, of course, but as I mentioned before, without access to the original file this difference cannot be detected.

I suppose I should make a note here that neither I nor AGHOST condone the intentional manipulation of any sort of data for the purposes of deceiving the public. The purpose of this section is simply to show that the metadata contained in an image can be manipulated as easily as the image itself, and thus should not be trusted as the sole means to verify the authenticity of a photograph. As I mentioned earlier, EXIF and other metadata types were designed to facilitate the sharing of media files and other data. The specification does not (as far as I know) include any sort of data integrity functionality for the metadata itself.

Fortunately, detecting photo fakery is a very well-studied problem.
New software to detect image manipulation is constantly being developed and becoming more accessible, and there are also many other techniques which can be used to detect altered photos. I'm interested in knowing what techniques other groups are using to analyze photo evidence. As always, please feel free to post a comment or shoot me an email and share your ideas.

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Saar Pioneer Cemetery Cleanup

This March 24th volunteer members of AGHOST and South King County Genealogical Society (SKCGS) will gather at Saar’s Cemetery in Kent to help with the beautification and cleanup of the cemetery.

Saar Pioneer Cemetery was established October 1st 1873 when the wife of Peter Saar, Margaret, was buried on the family homestead. The cemetery expanded as other pioneers in the area buried family members there. In 1905 the cemetery was deeded to the local Methodist Church.

After many years the cemetery fell into disrepair. It came to the attention of SKCGS in 2004 when an article was published in a local newspaper. SKCGS members decided to put the cemetery back together, with Karen Bouton volunteering as the chair person. She received permission from the Methodist church that owns the cemetery to maintain it, and is now working to get it named as a Historical Landmark. SKCGS has been researching the history of all persons buried there, currently known to be 107, four of which are civil war veterans. They are also working on a biographical book that they’re planning to publish this year with a grant from 4Culture.

SKCGS also received a grant from AGHOST this year to help with the cost of maintenance and cleanup. Karen is hoping that we’ll find more headstones as the blackberry bushes are cleared out. If anyone would like to lend a hand, we’ll be there 11am March 24th rain or shine; so come out and join us!

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So, where is your data? (Part 2)

In Part 1 of this series, I discussed some of the difficulties AGHOST has faced with archiving its massive collection of research data (photographs, audio and video) and how we ultimately utilized an open-source software tool to provide free access to that data to all members. But what about reports? All AGHOST investigators are required to submit a report after a walkthrough or an investigation. How do we assure consistent and accurate reports, and provide immediate access to that reporting data online? How can we be sure that the investigator has turned in their reports on time? How can we immediately correlate and search data from, say, 100 reports from 15 different investigations? For this we needed to build a custom solution.

In the past, reporting has been done using a document template that would typically be completed using a text editor of some sort, such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer. The reports were then either emailed or printed, and submitted to the team lead for review. I believe many other groups utilize a similar process as well. There are a number of issues with this procedure and workflow, however, some of which I will discuss below.

Investigation reports need to be easily published, and made available to everyone in the group so that other investigators can review and learn from each other's experiences. They also need to be easily searched and correlated with other reports. It would also be nice if we could automatically attach third party data to every report, such as the current space weather, for use later when we start analyzing and correlating the data from multiple investigations. Unfortunately many of these goals proved very difficult with a paper or document-based reporting system.

Another problem with paper reports is assuring that the reports are submitted in a timely manner. We have a rule here at AGHOST which states that if an investigator fails to turn in his or her reports, then they lose the privilege of participating on investigations or walkthroughs. With a group as active as ours, where we have multiple investigation coordinators organizing different investigations and teams, it can often be difficult to immediately determine who turned in their reports (and their data) for any given investigation. Furthermore, when reports are not turned in, who really wants to be the guy to have to hound one of our volunteer investigators for a paper report? As it turns out, none of our investigation coordinators enjoy that sort of thing!

So, it became clear that AGHOST, and likely many other paranormal research groups out there, desperately needed some kind of software reporting system - preferably web-based with some kind of database back-end. So, around July of 2006 I began the process of building the AGHOST Reporting Database. Codenamed Project October, the system was due to be finished by the end of October 2006, but actually required a couple more months to test and tweak. The software was finally rolled out around mid January, 2007 to AGHOST investigators.


About the AGHOST Reporting Database

The AGHOST Reporting Database consists of a web-based interface for case management, client relations and investigative reporting. The software allows AGHOST investigators to complete their reports online and AGHOST team leads to manage cases, manage investigators and present the client with a well-organized and consistent final report. All data is stored in a back-end database for easy querying and searching.

The software is case oriented. That is, case managers can create cases, to which all investigators and their reports are linked. Each case, then, represents a single investigation or walkthrough. Case managers can check up on the progress of individual investigators' reports, and send email reminders when needed. While designing and building the software, a fair amount of thought was put into creating a simple, yet functional user interface. Simple tasks such as publishing a report, or slightly more complex tasks such as listing all the cases and reports for a particular user, can be accomplished with just a couple clicks.

By integrating the AGHOST Reporting Database with our
Space Weather Archive developed earlier this year by AGHOST, we are also able to automatically pull space weather and moon phase data into the report on the fly. This data can now be automatically linked to the report, so that investigators are no longer required to manually obtain this information before or after the investigation.

Ultimately, in the short term this software will make reporting and case management a lot easier for our researchers, and in the long term will provide an invaluable resource of investigation data that can be queried and sorted for useful statistical information and trend analysis. So far it has been a great success, and we're all very excited about the possibilities of this new tool.


Is the Software Available for Download?

Although it's still a very new tool, a few folks have expressed an interest in obtaining this software. The AGHOST Reporting Database was built using entirely free software tools - including PHP, PERL, Apache and MySQL. It is, of course, feasible to distribute the code as-is, but at the moment more development will be required for it to be really useful to everyone else. For example, the templating system is a bit ugly, and the authentication code was built specifically to plug into our existing Joomla!-based back-end. So I will need to rewrite some of that so folks may do their own user management. Eventually, probably toward the middle or end of this year, I will release the tool under an open-source license. If you have in-depth knowledge of PHP, however, and are interested in deploying this tool for your own research group, please feel free to email me.

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AGHOST's Space Weather Archive

Late last year (2006) I completed a project called the Space Weather Archive. The project was somewhat of a branch of the Paranormal Weather Images project I worked on with Justin Faulk (GhostGadgets.com). The space weather archive includes two components; the archive (of course), and the software designed to provide easy access to the data.


Some Background

Many of you may have seen the space weather images from n3kl.org, or more recently weather.ghostgadgets.com on the websites of many ghost hunting and paranormal research organizations. They typically provide the user with a general status of the Earth's geomagnetic field and the x-ray flux from the Sun. These images are actually produced using data from the Space Environment Center, which is a research laboratory within NOAA.

Data relating to the Earth's geomagnetic field is collected using a number of ground-based magnetometer stations all over the world. X-ray, as well as other relevant data such as proton and electron flux, is gathered using the GOES weather satellites. Data from these sources is constantly pushed to the SEC laboratory and archived on their website. The SEC then uses this data to report and predict significant space weather events.

When filing reports or reviewing old cases, it is often time consuming to dig through the SEC archive and find older space weather data to correlate with the reports. So I began the project of building a web-based front-end to the archive to make access to this data quick and painless.


Accessing the Archive

The archive can now be accessed via a link on the AGHOST home page (see above image). The web interface accepts a single date as input (year, month, and day), and displays data for the entire day. You can then use the available data or plots to break the data down further to determine the results for a particular time of the day. Just be sure to account for the fact that all the data is displayed in Coordinated Universal Time.

Space Weather Results for October 31, 2006

The archive contains space weather data from January 1, 1996 to the present day. Much of the archive for past years is archived locally, on the AGHOSTOnline.org server. Data for the current year, however, is pulled directly from the SEC archive on the fly. Should you run into any bugs or have any questions, feel free to send me an email.

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