There is a haunted house on my block. I used to work in it when it was an antiques store. I never felt anything but people would regularly ask if the house was haunted. That would be a good place to use it and I could borrow the key.
One day this guy came in. He said he was 22. He said he always looked at the house when he drove past and thought about coming in but was afraid to. He said that when he was about 10 years old he had come there with his mother to shop. When he walked into the back room he suddenly got this weird feeling. Then he said there was a smell like wet burlap and he passed out.
He had come back to walk into the back room again and just see what he felt. And he was not a tall guy but he was muscular and a kind of construction worker type. He started walking down that hall to the back room and he couldn't do it. I kind of wanted to talk him into it but I could see he was afraid and I didn't want him to feel embarrassed so I just said "it's okay. I don't blame you."
But I never felt anything strange in there.
And I read that there is a low frequency that is often found in these kinds of "haunted areas."
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Infrasound sound waves, with low frequencies below 20 Hz, are undetectable to the human ear, but people who have been exposed to these tones for long periods have reported feeling uneasy, fearful or even nauseous.
Scientists have theorized that people who think their homes are haunted might be in fact responding to the presence of infrasound tones rattling around in old pipes.
"They feel something and they don't know what it is," said Schmaltz.
"So if you believe in ghosts or you're in an old building and you've got that creepy feeling you might mis-attribute that to a ghost or spirit.""
It is an old building and does have old pipes and maybe that's what everyone feels. It doesn't explain the burlap smell but our senses can fool us because we try to make sense out the things we perceive. But that house does have a cellar that I have started to go into a few times but always stopped because it does feel dangerous. It's old cement steps going down to a dirt floor, cement walls, and it's only accessible from outside. It's usually covered with a wooden door but it's broken and just lays on top of the opening. When it rains it gets wet. It's a really creepy place. And it's right beneath where he smelled the burlap so it's not hard to imagine people being put in bags and put in that cellar.
Whatever he felt it made a strong impression on him and he really wanted to confront it but found he couldn't . Maybe I should have tried to make him do it but it seemed more cruel than helpful.