Lone Fir Cemetery

On the drive to Lone Fir, we decided that a cemetery is in fact not an ideal choice for paranormal investigation. Our thinking had originally been that cemeteries equal gobs of dead bodies; we would head straight to the source. However, as Sean pointed out, cemeteries are outside, they are generally gigantic, and filled with bugs and trees and squirrels and possibly other people besides the three of us that have convinced themselves they have some business poking around a cemetery in the dark. All of these factors, especially the last one, could at best compromise the integrity of our audio equipment and at worst scare the shit out of us. But, we had to start somewhere and we were already over the Morrison Bridge, so we decided to continue with our original plan and chalk this one up to experience.

The Lone Fir Cemetery was established in 1855 and is on the National Register of Historic Places. Amber and I had a picnic slash photo session there in the daylight once. It’s a beautiful piece of property in southeast Portland, spreading over more than 30 acres with about 25, 000 bodies buried. Notable burials include a handful of Portland mayors, poet Samuel Simpson, first editor of the Oregonian, Thomas Dryer, and Dr. James C. Hawthorne, the primary physician of some 500 inmates of the Oregon Hospital for the Insane in the mid 1800's. At our picnic we ate fritos (which I’m now calling freudists) and Amber probably drank yerba mate.

                         Frued ist gestorben by, sauco -m                         

Because Lone Fir is so huge, there are a couple entrances from the street and neither are fenced off after hours, so getting inside was no problem. Sean came totally prepared with a camcorder, EVP device and some sort of laser pointing thermometer. I had the two things I usually have with me, my camera and journal, and Amber brought fancy flashlights that double as weapons to ensure our safety. These flashlights are serious business, by the way. Upon being attacked, the manual instructs the flashlight operator to first attempt blinding the attacker by switching the mode of emitting light to a strobe of sorts that is bright enough to kill a man. If by some chance, one’s attacker has some sort of super human pupil dilation, the bulb area is equipped with little protruding pokers useful for gouging the eyeball out completely. We were set!  

Before venturing through the graves, we had a brief meeting of the minds and decided that this situation, especially for me, provokes feelings of slight ridiculousness. We were all going to do our best to take ourselves and each other seriously. I promised to practice laugher restraint and assured Amber and Sean that any laughter would be out of sheer discomfort anyway and that I wasn’t making fun. We would let intuition guide us, stop at any point someone felt a strong energy, temperature change or intrigue, be vocal with our prospective paranormal friends if we felt so inclined and always remember that the bodies buried around us were all once loved by someone and are deserving of our respect.

We took off down a paved walkway that weaves through the cemetery and were soon strolling through the graveyard grasses snapping photographs and stopping for anything that felt or sounded suspicious. I have never noticed how much noise trees make; wood creaks and cracks and the branches drop bits to the ground. I was starting to understand what Sean meant about cemeteries being a tough place to investigate. There was so much ground to cover and so much noise, not to mention, it’s totally creepy. I learned that I’m a terrible note taker when I’m terrified. Here are my notes word for word:         
                                                                 

                                                                  Lone tree cemetery

            -feels like we’re being followed
                                           (probably because we’re wondering around in the pitch dark) 
(what am I doing)
                                          -sitting where I felt strong before - 4 tree spot
            -unmarked grave
            -child’s grave
            -Sean just said something about freemasons...?

So, these notes aren’t particularly helpful. What I gather from them is that I’m afraid of the dark and I got the name of the cemetery wrong. I haven’t heard from Sean, but I’m guessing that means he didn’t pick up anything on the camcorder or EVP recorder. But I think our first investigation was still a success. We learned we need to set up shop in a much smaller location, preferably indoors. We have a better idea of each of our roles in all this and at least we’ve got our first investigation under our collective belt.

As Sean drove Amber and I back to NW, we discussed possibly joining one of Portland’s Paranormal Societies so we sound more credible when we ask people for their ghost stories and attempt to talk business establishment managers into allowing us to investigate their property. And we did run into other people during our time in the Lone Fir Cemetery. However, they seemed just as weirded out by us as we were of them. Thankfully for them, the flashlight death machines were unnecessary for the time being.