Investigation Date: 11-03-2007
Site: Grand Old Mansion
Location: Mantorville, MN
Number of Investigations: 1
Evidence: EVP

Research and Background on the Property

The Grand Old Mansion, which was built in 1899, is one of the most recognizable landmarks in Mantorville. It was once the home of one of the sons of Teunis Slingerland, who was a banker and one of the largest landowners in Southern Minnesota.

Investigation Details

Weather Conditions
Temperature: 28°F
Barometer: 30.21
Dew Point: 24.3°
Wind: 8.75 mph
Moon: 28% Full

We had a team of eight investigators at this location, along with the owner of the house and her daughter. While investigating the first floor, loud thumping noise was heard on two separate occasions. The other teams were asked if they had made a loud noise and neither the members on the 2nd and 3rd floors heard nor caused any noise at that time. EMF readings varied throughout the first floor areas from 0.1 to 0.4 and there were fluctuating temperature readings ranging from 64.5 to 70 degrees. At one point, one team experienced the scent of lilacs, for which the source of could not be found.

Little activity occurred on the second floor of the house. A few members reported being touched and one team had temperature fluctuations up to five degrees from the baseline temp.

The third floor seemed to hold some of the most interesting experiences of the night. Tapping could be heard multiple times during the night but this was found to be Japanese Beetles that had gotten in and were hitting the ceiling and walls. There were multiple experiences of chills but no source of a draft could be located to account for this. The group reported being touched, battery drainages and one incident when the channel on the walkie-talkie had changed although no one was holding it nor was it set to scan the channels. It was in this area where the team heard an audible voice call out the name "Matt". This voice was caught on the audio recording and did not match the voice of the male investigator that was present in the room nor any of the other males present at the investigation that night.

The basement proved to have some highlights of the investigation as well. On three separate vigils, investigators could hear walking above them in the kitchen area. On each occasion the other teams were asked if someone was in that area and no one at the time of this phenomenon was in the kitchen area. Multiple experiences of being touched were also reported. At one point, one of the investigators had been sitting on an exercise machine with feet planted firmly on floor when she experienced the seat being shoved. The machine was on solid ground and was not wobbly. There was an interesting incident when a team in the basement heard the walkie-talkie go off and they heard what at the time was thought to be the team leader on another floor giving instruction for 5 more minutes till completion. This team went upstairs after the 5 minutes only to find that they were upstairs early and the team leader had not given the time check. No other teams heard the walkie-talkie go off during that time. This is unexplained. A few groups also noted battery drainages in the basement.

Final Analysis

Although many our team had experiences in this house and were able to capture EVP’s, we can not at this time say it is haunted. We do, however, feel the Grand Old Mansion warrants further investigation if the owner is open to allowing our team to come back.