There is one major drawback to investigating the paranormal. If you're experienced, you're more than 90% sure you won't see anything abnormal. You'll be able to explain or name everything realistically.

However, one branch of paranormal research shows a very high success rate in detecting paranormal activity. This is so-called esoteric research. If you want to know more about them, I am attaching an article below where you can study them. But why am I writing about it in the introduction?

The investigation in house 276 came about in part due to the fact that you, our devoted fans, largely wanted us to incorporate esoteric investigations into our objective research. And so we sat down at the round table and attempted to do just that.

We had the concept and dramaturgy figured out. Everything to fit into a valid investigation. Then we started looking for an esotericist. We actually approached dozens of them. But they all refused to participate. Some because of their health, some because of our objectivity, some because of the need to get a fee, and a few because we didn't want to show them exactly where the research would take place. Until, in sheer desperation, we approached you, too, and Mr. Jiří Št'astný, an esotericist, came forward and was willing to participate in the research within the parameters and overhead we had set as a condition. We met near the site of the investigation and went together to the location of the abandoned family house.

Initial inspections showed us that the interior was in a state of decay. Ceilings in several rooms had already collapsed, elsewhere everything looked as if it had been recently abandoned. From the distant highway, the sound of cars reached us, and once an hour the sound of passing trains came from the opposite direction.

The house stands strategically on a hill. But its ground and first floors offer almost no view. The once grassy garden is completely obscured by shrubs and trees that are growing wildly and beginning to resemble a forest.

Darkness is slowly descending on Prague. My colleagues are finishing their initial tours and we decide to split the research into two parts, which will then intermingle. Separately, the esotericist will conduct his own investigation to determine three basic questions: 1) Has anything ever happened here? 2) If so, where exactly? 3) If yes, what?

Beyond that, the esotericist will use his working methods to attempt to establish communication with what we would all call the paranormal. But... is there such a thing?

FIRST PHASE OF RESEARCH

The first phase of research is separate for Paranormal Team members and esoteric. We, the Objectivists, go through the house and measure all the energy readings that we have instruments for. These readings correspond to the locations we have researched and nothing paranormal has ever taken place there. Separately, the esotericist examines the ground floor of the house, where he also comes up with his own verdict that he senses nothing abnormal - except in one room.

Since this time we decided to give esotericism a chance, we drew up a plan of the house and everyone, including the esotericist, recorded the subjective values of depression on a scale of one to five. One being calm and five being severely depressed. All agreed that the house as a whole appeared calm and peaceful. Only two members of the research independently noted the same room independently, which they felt was more depressing than the others. It was a corner room with a couch and a gramophone, just beyond the entrance to the house on the ground floor. The esotericist, based on his methods of work, discovered that this was where the crime was supposed to have taken place. An assault, injury or murder of a family member over a dispute. That answers our three questions:

1) Has anything ever happened here? The answer: yes.
2) If something happened here, where exactly? Answer: in the room shown as number 3 on the plan.
3) If something happened here, what? Answer: an assault or murder within the family that once lived here. The reason was a dispute.

SECOND PHASE OF RESEARCH

In the second phase of the research, this time we are focusing on the esotericist's methodology of work in terms of summoning spirits. We move to the first floor of the house and there we place the Ouija board along with our instruments for measuring electromagnetic fields, temperatures, wind speed, sound and image recorders. We're simply combining the esoteric with our objectivity. Then we let the esotericist do his work, only this time we assist him with our presence.

A few minutes after we start, a piece of plaster falls off the wall. We don't attribute this to the paranormal, because the walls are really in a state of disrepair. At the same moment Míša Valešková hears the sound of spray. It's as if someone has sprayed perfume on themselves. A similar sound is heard on the camera during the recording of that moment. But the sound could easily be caused by someone's movement. So for logical reasons, we're not including this event as possible paranormal evidence.

The research with the Ouija board ends without us recording anything paranormal. Our work is slowly coming to an end and we leave the house as we found it.

POLICE SEARCH

Although no evidence of the paranormal will come from the analysis of the records, we still have the results of the investigation of the invited esotericist. His answers were included in our materials, and then we contacted the police, who came to our rescue and revealed the shroud of mystery that shrouds this place.

We have thus discovered important information that allows us to either confirm or refute the esotericist's conclusions.

A serious event occurred in house 276, as a result of which various fictions and myths began to spread about this place. However, if the esotericist in the first question claimed that something happened here, then he was right. But he was wrong in locating the room from the plan. The one he and one member of the Paranormal Team, had identified as the most depressing was not. It was the room marked as number two on the plan, in the very center of the house. At the time, it was simply referred to as the living room.

In August 2001, the body of a brutally murdered elderly man was found by a neighbour tied to a chair with a cable. stabbed several times and beaten with a blunt object (probably a hammer). Whoever committed the murder stole several items from the house and left. But it was definitely not a family member, because the murdered man had no family and lived here alone. He was the last owner of this building, and after his death the house was just abandoned and fell into disrepair.

Later, it was suspected that the infamous Stodolos were behind the murder, but even a renewed investigation and DNA analysis of the traces failed to find the culprit. And so the perpetrator of this murder remains unpunished to this day. And since 20 years have passed since the crime, unless the killer died or is locked up for other crimes, he lives peacefully at large and faces no prison sentence.

But let's get back to our investigation. Thanks to the facts obtained by the police, we were able to clearly state that the esotericist was wrong in two of the three questions we asked him. Beyond that, however, both he and I agreed that no haunting was present in the house. At least not at the time we conducted the research.

CONCLUSION

House number 276 is a crumbling ruin, where here and there you can find hints of its former beauty. There was a murder here, but time has long since erased it. All that remains are the legends and, somewhere behind them, the facts that have helped us uncover the truth and remind you of it.

And with that knowledge, we bid you farewell for once.

Author of the article: Ondřej Adler
Proofreading by Michala Valešková

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