BLUFFTON — It may be a welcoming library now, but that parcel of land on Bluffton’s Main Street has a history, one that paranormal investigators ParaSisters wanted to explore.
During a presentation to the public Saturday at the library, the Indiana-based investigative group, made up of Sarah Bradford, Kellie Ward and Amanda Hardwick, outlined the history of the property, noting that it was a sanitarium in 1908 before getting new owners and becoming the Mennonite Deconness Home and Hospital in 1919. In 1937, the Bluffton Memorial Hospital moved down the street, and over time, the library, once housed in the high school, moved across the street to its current location, buildng a new addition in 1986.
That history offered great impact into the ParaSisters’ investigation in September, where they asserted they found something left behind from that history.
“We found out we were talking to a 7-year-old girl,” Ward said. “She wanted a dolly left behind.”
The group used a variety of instruments during its overnight investigation, from white noise machines to electromagnetic field detectors to divining rods and pendulums, with the pendulum pointing to certain answers marked on paper when asked specific questions. The group recorded banging noises in a stairwell area, the name “Lauren” coming through the white noise and faint sounds of laughter and coughing.
“She’s happy,” Bradford said. “She’s not here to hurt anybody.”
The group said they encounter many reactions to what they do, from the true believers to the die-hard skeptics. To both of them, their message is the same.
“Believe what you want to believe,” Bradford said. “For Kellie, she believes, and I believe to a point. If you believe it’s real, it’s real to you.”
