Joliet Historical Museum Investigation

The Joliet Area Historical Museum occupies the space formerly known as the Ottawa Street Methodist Church at the intersection of Cass and Ottawa Streets in downtown Joliet. Since its opening in the fall of 2002, the museum's main exhibition gallery serves as an introduction to the many stories of the Joliet area and its people.

Exhibits are enhanced by state-of-the-art audio-visual presentations, life-size models, award-winning touch screen visuals, and even a step-in Lunar Lander Simulator for your interaction as you explore how the past shaped the world you now enjoy. Temporary exhibits and targeted educational programming provide additional interpretive opportunities.

The Joliet Area Historical Museum has come into existence from efforts of the City of Joliet, the Joliet Area Historical Society, Joliet Junior College and Joliet citizens. The city purchased the church, and the Joliet Area Historical Museum was incorporated into a 501(c) non-profit organization in 1999. (History courtesy of Museum website: www.jolietmuseum.org)

Hauntings: There are reports of a little girl laughing or children playing downstairs. Female staff members don’t go downstairs by themselves. Visual apparitions have been seen on occasion. A number of people have felt a negative energy around the women’s bathroom.

A staff member was washing windows and went to do the other side when he briefly saw a female apparition which has been named Emma. The sound of little footsteps, perhaps one or two, following staff has been encountered. When they would turn around, nobody would be there.

Address: 204 N. Ottawa St., Joliet, IL 60432

Phone: 815-723-5201, Ext. 7212

Owner: Jennifer Bennett

Website: www.jolietmuseum.org

The Ghost Research Society investigated The Joliet Historical Museum on May 18, 2022 and the team members included: Mari Huff, Michael Wright, Mike Rosario, Charles Williams, Paul Adams, Michael Garrett, Andrew Puccetti and Dale Kaczmarek with help from Tim Schmuldt and Amanda Pilgreen from Ghost Head Soup.

Equipment setup: A lot of hand-held equipment was used including Melmeters with telescopic probes, Tri-Field Natural EM Meter, K-II Meter, digital recorders, Nightshot infrared camcorders, dowsing rods.

Experiments performed:

Two EVP sessions were conducted; one upstairs near the Civil War section and the other on the main floor near the Blue Brothers exhibit.

Personal encounters:

Mike Rosario: For this investigation, we traveled to the Old Joliet History Museum located in Joliet, Illinois. This took off on Wednesday, May 21, 2022, at approximately 5:45pm with Dale Kaczmarek, and a few other members of the GRS team. Evening weather was a bit warm, with skies cloudy and calm. Equipment used in this investigation were my K-II Meter; a Philips VoiceTracer Digital Voice Recorder, iPhone 8+; and a DVC 4K Ultra HD 48mp Night Shot Digital Video Camcorder.

For this investigation, I was accompanied by mostly Dale, Andrew, and Mike Wright, but we did have other GRS members present around the site that did their own individual investigation. I began by doing my usual K-II sweeps around the museum. I remember it being around 1.8mG at its highest reading on the second-floor level, where we started first, and slowly made our way downstairs, with a reading of 1.4 at its lowest. We had done our EVP sessions in these two locations for about a good two hours, even with our Phasma Box. I have never been here before, just as Joliet Prison. This was an essential investigation for me because I really wanted to come here. It is all part of history, and I was honored to be given the chance to investigate this part of old Joliet’s amazing history!

Upon reviewing all of my evidence, I did not capture any video or audio evidence. There was evidence containing noise contamination, which made it somewhat hard to decipher what was paranormal and what wasn’t. But it still does warrant another evening investigation at this awesome location!

Dale Kaczmarek: We were only given about two hours of investigating within the building so we split up the group and half went upstairs and the rest downstairs for the first hour. After the hour was complete, we switched floors.

It was usually quiet downstairs near the Blues Brothers display, however upstairs was a different matter near the Civil War section. We had some interesting words come through the Ovilus V including Thurifer; which is used for burning incense during liturgies. This building was the Ottawa Street Methodist Church!

The other words “I need help” and “get out” were significant as we were near actual artifacts collected and on display from soldiers who fought and perhaps died in the Civil War.

A REM Epod was placed on a chair at the entrance to the upstairs. That chair was actually built by former prisoners of the old Joliet Prison; which we investigated a bit later in the day.

The Tri-Field Natural EM Meter alerted a couple of time when it was placed on a bench overlooking the Civil War display. That device hardly ever goes off!

There was a little talking in the background that was picked up by my digital recorder so I had to tell others downstairs not to talk so loud as their voices traveled and were picked up upstairs.

Evidence collected:

Get out jmuseum.MP4 – while conducting an Ovilus V session in phonetic mode near the Civil War section upstairs, the device blurted out, “Get out.”

I need help jmuseum.MP4 – while conducting an Ovilus V session in phonetic mode near the Civil War section upstairs, the device said, “I need help.”

Periscope alerting1 jmuseum.MP4 - the Periscope began alerting while on the second floor when nobody was around.

Periscope alerting2 jmuseum.MP4 - while conducting an EVP session near the Civil War section, the Periscope device began alerting.

Thurifer jmuseum.MP4 – while conducting an Ovilus V session in phonetic mode near the Civil War section upstairs, the device suddenly said, “Thurifer.” (A Thurifer, also called a censer, is a vessel used in the Christian liturgy for the burning of aromatic incense strewn on lighted coals.)

Words spoken by the Ovilus V in dictionary mode: chloride, milk, scruple, value, once, pain, swims, gateways, wish, Alice, wise and once; Ovilus V in phonetic mode - I need help, get out, thurifer, Ghost Box – stop.

Conclusions: Overall, this building was pretty quiet as far as paranormal activity. The downstairs in particular when my team was near the Blues Brothers display was very quiet. The upstairs near the Civil War artifacts however was much more active.

One of the main reasons, I chose this location in the first place was to see and investigate near “trigger objects”; objects that were antiquated. The Pogo the Clown painting was no longer on display as it is a traveling artifact. I had hoped it was still there.

I did not feel anything unusual when investigating here but later on when our team went to the old Joliet Prison was another story.