LANGLEY AIR FORCE BASE, Va. –
For years, claims of strange sounds and eerie visions inside the 633rd Contracting Squadron's historic headquarters on Langley Air Force Base have perpetuated ghost stories shared among base personnel.
Upon learning of the paranormal lore, a team of local investigators geared up and spent a night in Building 90 in early January, hunting for evidence of spirits who may have stayed behind in the aging farmhouse.
According to Ray Savino, founder of R.T.L. Paranormal, the non-profit investigation organization, reports of apparitions and shadowy figures lurking throughout the building piqued his interest.
"We heard stories of an apparition by the water fountain on the second floor, a figure in a second-floor window as people leave to go home and the smell of pastry-baking in the mornings," Savino said.
Chief Master Sgt. Bradley Smith, the squadron's superintendent, said he heard the stories before he arrived at Langley, and hoped an investigation would validate the claims.
Savino, whose full-time job is working for Langley's commissary, researched the history of the building and the surrounding property, and found a storied past. The building was constructed as the farmhouse for a local plantation, called Hemenway Farms. After falling under bank control, a local university used the building as a co-educational boarding school.
Eventually, the U.S. Army purchased the land for development into Langley Field, commissioned in 1917.
Armed with a variety of equipment, including digital and infrared cameras, full-spectrum camcorders, audio recorders, and a three-camera digital video recorder system, R.T.L. Paranormal's 11-person team met with 633rd CONS leadership to investigate overnight Jan. 6.
During the night, various investigators reported unusual occurrences, including telephones mysteriously switching their speakerphones on and off, and voices from unoccupied offices. The investigators took extra care not to "contaminate" areas under surveillance with foreign sounds.
"We do what we call 'tagging.' When we enter a room or make a sound, like a cough or sneeze, we 'tag' that sound by verbally noting it; for example 'That was Ray coughing,'" Savino explained. "That way when we review audio and video, we know what noises are explained and what they are. If we don't tag it, we review it as possible evidence during our meeting.
"If we see or hear something 'odd' during an investigation, we do whatever it takes to see what could have caused it, trying to rule out false positives," he continued.
Upon reviewing the audio and video footage from the investigation, Savino and his colleagues found a wealth of anomalies, including more than 25 instances of electronic voice phenomena, or EVP, and one curious piece of video evidence. The investigators returned to the 633rd CONS Feb. 24 to reveal their findings to squadron leadership.
EVP is described as brief, speech-like sounds captured on audio recordings, theorized to be paranormal in nature. Investigators may or may not hear these sounds while investigating, but discover them during playback. One of R.T.L.'s EVP findings was what sounded like a woman or child humming a song, emanating from a vacant hallway on the second floor.
All persons present at the investigation confirmed no one was in the area at the time the ghostly song was recorded, as most of the team was outside on the building's wraparound porch on a break.
Additionally, night-vision DVR footage from the basement revealed what looks like a shadowy, human-shaped figure "following" an investigator through a narrow passageway, appearing briefly before dissipating into the darkness.
The wealth of intriguing evidence convinced the investigators that the activity is paranormal, but not threatening or malignant.
"I believe that there is a lot of stuff going in this house, but nothing to be afraid of," Savino said. "There is some sadness in certain areas of the building, and there is happiness and playfulness in others."
Lt. Col. Christopher Wegner, the 633rd CONS commander, and Smith joined R.T.L. Paranormal during the investigation. Wegner said despite his initial skepticism, he supported the investigation because he "wanted scientific answers" to prove or disprove the existence of paranormal activity in the building.
"The night was very interesting," said Smith, who admits to having long been interested in paranormal activity.
"There were a couple clear cases of things that appear to be out of the norm," the chief said. "From everything I have heard and a couple instances from this investigation, the possibility that something out of the ordinary exists is quite possible."