Oakland Cemetery Investigation

This rather large cemetery dates back to 1859. The graveyard is divided into different section or lots for pets, cremations, infants, American Legion veterans and even employees of Oliver Typewriter Company. At the end of the property is a big swampy marsh known as Choate’s Pond and was once a very popular swimming spot for teenagers and adults alike. Sadness came to that pond in the late 1800s when two or more children drowned and then it ceased to be such a joyous place to frequent.

A rather large mausoleum on the property with the name Buck inscribed on it appears to be the epicenter of much paranormal activity. A number of years ago village officials ordered the mausoleum bricked up due to frequent break-ins from local teenagers at night, some of which included the scattering of the deceased remains!

Address: 13606 County Highway 30, Woodstock, Illinois 60098

Hauntings: Because of desecration, unearthly screams have emanated from the confines of the structure over the years. Eyewitnesses have observed psychic forms that did not have an earthly explanation. Included were glowing globes of light bouncing in front of a group of late night visitors in October of 1997. Others described seeing and photographing an orange-yellow fire further back into the depths of the graveyard. As they approached this “fire”, it receded further back until it simply disappeared. Still others have described seeing a black shadow set low to the ground which apparently wasn’t cast by any in the group that evening.

Phantom animals, namely black jaguars have been seen in the area and reported to local police three or four times. All the reports claim these animals just vanish from sight.

Equipment setup: Only hand-held equipment was deployed such as digital recorders and cameras and a camcorder, Melmeter with telescopic probe and a Samsung Galaxy S21 slim ultra-cell phone was used for the ParaTek app.

Experiments performed: A single ParaTek app session was conducted in front of the large mausoleum on the property that was started at 5:12pm with an outdoor temperature of 59.2°.

Personal experiences:

Dale Kaczmarek: I felt nothing out of the ordinary while visiting this location however a number of interesting random words did come through the ParaTek app that were relevant to past events here including some of the past vandalism such as; sad, teenager, team, late, the darkness, trouble and sad – again. These words seem to line up with past vandalism performed by some local teenagers after dark, late in the night and it was indeed sad what they did.

The seven us seven combination was an interesting set of words that seemed to be somewhat intelligent in nature.

The Ghost Research Society investigated Oakland Cemetery on May 21, 2022. Team members included: Paul Adams, Michael Wright and Dale Kaczmarek

Evidence collected:

Seven us seven oakland.MP4 – while conducting a ParaTek app session in front of the large mausoleum the word “seven” was said; a question was then asked, “There’s seven of you here or it is four of you plus us?” The device responded with, “us”. A follow-up comment was then made, “I guess that means that there are seven of them.” The device then said, “Seven.”

Words spoken by the ParaTek app: Steven, sad, Sandy, later, strip, steam, above, other, rudder, tell me, fear me, seven, us, seven, devil, know, least, you bet, text, you can’t, said, railway, next, teenager, seeds, team, late, the darkness, sad, intention, Jenny, trouble, knee, own, you stopped & enjoy.

Conclusions: The first time we visited this site was back on June 27, 1998 and was guided around by Stacey McArdle and Monty McClendon. The GRS members who were present at this investigation were John Cachel, Howard Hight, Stan Suho, Matt Hucke and Dale Kaczmarek.

Most of the history and haunting information collected for this report came from Stacey McArdle.

During our 2022 visit during the day, we did not see or experience anything out of the ordinary. It seems that most of the activity happens after dark and a future visit to this cemetery after sunset might be advantageous even if we just sit at the boundary of the cemetery and don’t actually enter. Some of the screams and strange lights have only been reported after dark so we could legally be outside of the cemetery and just observe and record the area with Nightshot cameras, digital recorders and infrared binoculars.

I plan to set up just such an investigation in the near future.