SWEEPSTAKES: Win a Trip to NYC and Tickets to Governors Ball Music Festival

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Tucker and I love music. There’s nothing that gets us more hyped for investigating a haunted house than blasting some tunes. That’s why we’re giving you another opportunity to partake in two of our biggest passions – music festivals and Spectral Sightings!

So here’s the deal: There’s a residence in New York City called The Bedforde Inn. It has been around since the mid 1800s and housed some of the most elite families in the borough. One family in particular, Mary and William Richards, were extremely successful and often threw incredible parties. They had a beautiful daughter named Amelia. Tragically, she died at the age of 5 in an accident and Mary and William never recovered. It is said that their lives deteriorated to a point where they couldn’t go on, and together, they took their own lives.

The house still has original pieces of artwork and furniture from the family, and many have said that they can hear laughter and music in the night. Some say it’s the entities of the family, finally together again.

Creepy, right?! This is a haunted location that simply MUST be explored. That’s where you come in. Enter this sweepstakes for a chance to spend a weekend with a friend at The Bedforde Inn in Brooklyn, New York, while you attend Governor’s Ball Music Festival!

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Take a picture and/or record a video showing us how you would react if you came face to face with an Insidious entity.
2. Post it to Twitter, Instagram or Vine, and hashtag your post #InsidiousScareDare.
3. Grab a friend whom you feel comfortable screaming in front of and get ready for the trip of a lifetime!

Would you react with heroic courage or bone-chilling terror? Either way – we want to see those faces. For more submissions, check these out. Good luck!

-Specs

SWEEPSTAKES: Win a Trip to New York City and Two Tickets to the City's Greatest Music Festival

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During prohibition, tons of sketchy stuff went down. Speakeasies were probably a major breeding ground for unspoken activity, and this particular spot has a folklore all its own. Originally constructed in the 1890s (on the hush, of course), it has seen some action. What action, we’re not sure, but rumor has it that strange noises come from the now-locked basement of this hotel. Patrons have reported muffled jazz, loud “shush-ing” noises, and constant footsteps going up and down the stairway – really creepy stuff, but no documented sightings.

Unfortunately for these witnesses, things allegedly got even creepier. These noisy entities followed the underground drinkers home where the exact same cigar smoke and heavy footsteps were discovered again. Luckily, they got help from spectral experts. Once expelled, the entities returned to the speakeasy basement to haunt the next guests.

If you’re the thrill-seeking type, and we hope you are, you could win a chance to witness these entities in the city that never sleeps. You have a chance to win a trip for two to New York City, May 22-23, to stay at the hotel as well as two tickets to the city’s greatest music festival.

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Take a picture and/or record a video showing us how you would react if you came face to face with an insidious entity.
2. Post it to Twitter, Instagram or Vine, and hashtag your post #InsidiousScareDare.
3. Grab a friend who’s not a total wimp and cross your fingers.

Chances are you’d be freaked out if followed by one of these entities, and we don’t blame you. So would Tucker, but that’s a low bar for comparison’s sake. Anyway, show us the face you think you’d make if you were confronted by one of these entities and you may get your chance. For more submissions, check these out. Good luck!

-Specs

SWEEPSTAKES: Win a Trip to Rock in Rio Music Festival in Las Vegas

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We do a lot of hanging out in haunted houses, but never does it feel like a vacation. As you may imagine, this opportunity feels like a breath of fresh air. One house in particular – The Rocking Chair House in Las Vegas, Nevada – is the site of a particularly creepy haunting and potentially your home for a weekend during Rock in Rio Music Festival the weekend of May 15.

Legend has it that a few years ago, an old lady named Rita McGill lived and died in this place. She lived a long life – she was 91 when she passed – but it seems like her energy, her soul or something else is still active. It’s said that she still goes about her daily routine and doesn’t take kindly to uninvited visitors messing with that.

Oddities in the house include, but are not limited to, Rita’s rocking chair perpetually rocking throughout the night and coffee cups remaining hot indefinitely. Some of the creepiest stuff comes from past guests who claim they have woken up to find themselves tucked so tightly into bed that it felt like someone was trying to suffocate them. Sounds to me like Rita is still kickin’ and she’s not a fan of outsiders. But hey, you tell us…if you’re the lucky winner of the Las Vegas sweepstakes.

Las Vegas is just one of three opportunities you have to explore haunted houses all over the country. Brooklyn, you’re up next, and who knows where the third destination will be? At each stop, one lucky winner and their guest will win a flyaway trip to one of this summer’s hottest music festivals as well as two nights of haunted housing and transportation. Bed-wetting prevention costs not included.

HOW TO ENTER:

1. Take a picture and/or record a video showing us how you would react if you came face to face with an insidious entity.
2. Post it to Twitter, Instagram or Vine, and hashtag your post #InsidiousScareDare.
3. Grab a friend who has no problem cleaning your, and their own, soiled pants.

Whether you’d be totally terrified (that’d probably be Tucker) or a true hero (me, of course), we want to see those faces. For more submissions, check these out. Good luck! .

-Specs

Future Hauntings

GOOD EVENING SPECTRAL SIGHTSEERS!

Fresh off the cutting room floor - I present to you a teaser trailer for our upcoming web series - Spectral Sightings! It took us about 6 hours to figure out how to get the audio track synced with the video (mostly Tucker’s fault) but we’ll get the hang of this video editing thing soon enough. Enjoy!

-Specs

Spectral Musings!

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GREETINGS SPECTRAL SIGHTSEERS!

A lot of you have been asking about a typical day in the life of Specs & Tucker. Let me tell you, in this line of work, there is no such thing as a typical day. To achieve our level of ghost-hunting greatness, you need a perfectly honed set of skills and careful preparation.

While we won’t give away ALL of our secrets - this will be a journey into our latest spectral stakeout (location is still classified pending legal issues surrounding “trespassing” and “breaking and entering” allegations .. don’t worry, we’ll win).

1200 Hours - Wake up early to get a jumpstart on the day.

There’s nothing I hate more than waking up at the crack of noon, but when duty calls, we must act with the swiftness and agility of a gazelle. You can see Tucker is awakening with the swiftness and agility of a tranquilized grizzly bear. Don’t let the grogginess fool you, when he has had his Grande ÜberMocha Crack-a-Chino, he is a force to be reckoned with.

1400 Hours - Prepare the Spectral Utility Van

Every master craftsman has a toolbox - ours is on four wheels and is ready to chase down any paranormal activity at a staggering 13 MPGs.

I know this might look like your standard VHS / DVD combo, but this section of the van has been tricked out to automatically record anything captured by our cameras or microphones throughout the entire stakeout. It’s almost like we don’t even need to be there. We could be out getting more supplies. Strawberry frosted supplies .. with sprinkles..

2100 Hours - The Stakeout Commences

Our client had told us that she had been hearing strange noises coming from her bedroom (which apparently had been the location of a brutal murder-suicide generations ago). It was time to gear up and exercise some demons.

You can see Tucker preparing to wield the Sound-Capturer-Audio-Reader-Extravaganza (SCARE for short). Once all of our gear is in place, we begin the arduous process of waiting for the activity to occur. This is why we keep stocked with top notch brain-food to keep our wits quick and our trigger fingers quicker.

2338 Hours - First Signs of Activity

The SCARE started going berserk at exactly 11:38 - the same time that the murder-suicide was said to occur. Coincidence? Yeah, I think you know the answer to that question.

Obviously Tucker is no where to be found, so I go to investigate. I’ve got the Ghoul Detector 5000 in one hand and this camera with night vision attachment in the other. Tucker had the Yasiya 2.0 so here I am with the wrong capturing equipment. Oh well, I made due.

0145 Hours - Day 2 - Proof of Paranormal? You decide.

Even though I didn’t have my Yasiya 2.0, I still found a way snap this shot. I was turning the corner through the dungeon door leading down into the basement. As soon as I entered the room I felt the presence of another. As my hair stood up on the back of my neck, I heard a series of cacophonous screams so petrifying that I almost passed out. Luckily my spectral training taught me to focus on my breathing and trudge onward.

It was at that moment that I felt a hand on my shoulder, I whip around and snap this shot with my camera as the Ghoul Detector needles skyrocket into the danger zone. Unfortunately, Tucker flipped the lights on right after the entity managed to slip through a crack in the wall.

I asked him where he was, he said he was “getting readings in the van” - he was probably catching some Z’s. Maybe we shouldn’t take jobs that force us to wake up so early.

-Specs

Coincidence? I Think Not: Bedroom Investigations Crank Up Suspicion of Ghosts

What a creepy little moment in an otherwise normal day. On a routine investigation into a potentially afflicted residence, we opened the bedroom door to find obvious entity involvement. At Spectral Sightings, our policy says we must first survey the scene. Let’s see…

1. The silk gown hanging from the wall seems oddly placed to me. I’m guessing granny didn’t put it there herself as there’s a closet right inside the doorway. But what would a ghost want with an old nightgown? Hmm…

2. Those books look oddly stacked (if you can call it that) in the corner. Not to mention the shreds of paper all over the floor. Very peculiar…it’s like whatever was in this room didn’t want someone to read whatever was in one of those books. Putting those scraps of paper together would take forever. Maybe the destroyed book’s cover is around here somewhere.

3. Don’t most rocking horses have pieces bolted to the hooves so they can actually rock back and forth? The blue-gray horse in the crib seems to have been ripped from its frame and hastily thrown aside. This tells me the scene here is no coincidence. It appears personal.

4. It’s odd that there’s one drawer missing from that chest sitting in the rocking chair, but whatever was in here was clearly looking for something specific. Maybe it found it, maybe it didn’t and ransacked the place. One thing’s for sure, though – that entity was on a mission.

5. I’ve never seen a mannequin without arms. This looks plain creepy to me, and I don’t like it one bit. The creepier bit is the mystery of where the arms went. They’re not in the room, so someone/thing took them for one reason or another. Your guess is as good as mine.

My guess is we have more work to do. Whatever did this is still out there, and to be honest, we have no idea where – and that’s the creepiest part of all. However, at the end of the day, we’re professionals and we’ll find this thing.

Gear Specs With Specs: Yasiya 2.0

An homage to my mentor in Spectral Sightings, this is a device I’m really proud of for a couple reasons. First off, this may be the most effective piece of equipment we use as it serves multiple purposes – audio, visual and communicative efforts are all wired through this device and it easily alerts both of us when we’re on the job. More on that in a bit. Second, the whole thing was built from old electronics I’ve either inherited or bought second-hand, so I have to pat myself on the back for constructions sake. It may not look like much, but looks are so deceiving with the Yasiya.

1. Customized Mamiya C33

The component on the left is an adapted Mamiya C33 – an old medium-format camera my father gave me. I think it was originally made in the ‘60s or something, but it’s best for close-up images. However, it’s been modified so it not only records video, but we ripped out part of its guts to create a new storage and sensor system so it can save files directly to a card. It also works with the middle device to transmit a signal to our headsets that alerts us when apparitions are in the vicinity. This comes in extra handy when we’re on the job and don’t happen to see the apparition ourselves and need to be alerted of its presence.

2. Standard Audio Transmitter

The machine in the middle is a standard audio transmitter, which pretty much just relays messages to us both. Super simple. No modifications made here. The eight dials are for different mics we can sync to the Yasiya in order to bug an entire location. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – this thing saves lives.

3. Yashica Super-8 with Special Edition Film

On the right, we have an old Yashica Super-8 film camera. Also found in my father’s closet – okay, maybe he didn’t exactly gift us these – this is a camera of nearly equal age and similar function. Where digital misses, this thing does not. It’s been reconfigured to shoot a special kind of film that has similar properties to an x-ray machine. While on a mission, this film determines the composition of its subject –whether an apparition or not – and, when we’re back in the lab, we can tell what it was and further investigate. So far, it hasn’t found anything conclusive, but we’re not about to let that stop us.

Typically, the Yasiya is mounted in a central location of the place we’re working and pointed in the direction our client believes to be haunted. Sometimes they’re off, though, which makes our job difficult and sometimes the Yassie (sweet nickname, huh?) misses the apparition entirely. I swear I’ve seen them, but our cameras haven’t captured it…yet. Stay tuned as we’ll be sure to post pics of apparitions as we spot them.