Miner's Cabin, Gold Hill, NV

April 2009

We couldn't wait to get back to Gold Hill and into the Miner's Cabin! We reserved it for Sat. night, April 11th. We had heard that it was pretty active. We were 140 years and 4 days from the day of a fire that claimed 35 (confirmed) lives in the Yellow Jacket Mine.

On April 7, 1869, a fire broke out at the 800 ft. level of the mine. It is believed that a candle had been placed too close to a wooden support beam that eventually caught fire. Due to all of the air shafts that fueled the flames, the area had to be sealed off. It has been stated that it smoldered for months. Anyone in that area or below it was trapped.
The Miner's Lodge was used for rest between shifts and to get cleaned up. Now, the cabin can be a two bedroom cabin or a door can be closed in the center to turn it into 2 separate units.
Rebecca, Jessie and I met at the cabin around 3pm. We unloaded all of the gear, put batteries on the chargers, then drove down to the cemetery. My hopes were to find some headstones of miners who had died in the fire.

That way we would have some actual names to work with during the investigation. Unfortunately, a lot of the older parts of the cemetery have rotted away. I could not find any names of miners. I imagine the miners did not have the funds or the family to mark their graves with stone markers. Still, it was interesting to wander around the area. We decided to get something to eat while it was still early and we had choices. We actually got to sit down, enjoy a burger and fries and each others conversation. A lot more filling than the dried mangoes of our last visit. When we arrived back at the cabin, we busied ourselves with set up. Deciding the best place to put cameras and the voice recorders. We still had some daylight, so we walked down to the actual mine. We took quite a few photos, most of which proved to be innocuous. However, I did find two that made me say, "Hmmm". Do I see what I think I see? Is my brain matrixing? Help me out here.






We made our way back to the cabin, tried to find something on the T.V. to help kill some time. It was Easter weekend so we ended up watching an old traditional "Jesus" film. We took out the EMF and KII meters and did a sweep. We came across a spot in the bookcase that made the EMF meter go crazy, however, the KII did not react at all. With the kitchen being in the other side of the wall, we concluded that it must be wiring of some sort. I found it interesting that the KII registered nothing. We began the investigation around 11pm, in unit 19. We immediately noticed that this room was at least 10 degrees cooler than the rest of the cabin. Between the music coming from the bar and people leaving the establishment, there was just no "feel" to this room. We spent 30 min. in this room, then decided to move to unit 18. As we continued to investigate we, again, felt nothing out the ordinary. In reviewing the video footage, there was a light that I just can't figure out. Knowing that Jessie was the only one facing the wall, and watching the reflection of the light from her camera, I just cannot see how it could have come from her. I later, found out that Rebecca had taken a photo of me and caught an orb on this very same wall.



Once the bar closed and everyone had gone, we moved to the Great Room. Since we had captured a decent EVP in there on our last visit, we were hoping to get more of the same. We noticed right away that the iron doors to the bar were open and shuffling could be heard inside. Rebecca sat down, while Jessie and I stayed back. The bartender emerged. Rebecca said "Hello" and this man walked towards her until he was about 4 inches from her face. At this point, I felt a need to make my presence known as well. In his intoxicated state, he let us know that we had startled him. (A cleaned up version). His ride arrived and we finally had the place to ourselves. Jessie saw a light move across her camera frame twice. I haven't seen the footage as of this date. That was the extent of activity.
It was getting late, so we returned to the cabin. I was looking out of the window towards the mine, I thought I saw a light. I pointed it out to Rebecca, who also saw it, we decided to investigate. Jessie, already in bed, didn't want to be left alone. She crawled out of bed to join us. It turned out to be a reflection on a boat that was being stored not far from the cabin. We also noticed how loud the heater to the cabin was when it ignited. How the sound, as it bounced off of the mountain, could be mistaken as sounds coming from the mine.
We decided to let the voice recorders run as we slept. I, later, discovered that one of the recorders had crashed and we lost 7 hrs of audio. I DO NOT recommend the RCA RPS5120-A digital voice recorder. This is the second one that has crashed. It appears to be fine, then when you try to load the files into the computer, they are corrupted.
All in all, the Miner's Cabin was pretty uneventful. Still we had a great time.
Next stop....Unionville, NV.

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