Charthouse Restaurant Investigation
Location:  Simsbury, CT
Time or Date: 09/19/1998
Investigators: Orlando Ferrante, Joe Franke, John Helstosky, and Joyce St.Germaine
Equipment Used: 8mm Camcorder, VHS Video recorder, cassette recorder with stereo microphones, two 35mm cameras with flash, Epson Digital camera and flash, 2 Radio Shack motion detectors.
 
Overview: Manager and employees have seen candles light by themselves after they have been blown out. Patrons as well as employees have seen shadows and strange lighting while in the restaurant. Drinking glasses have been seen moving and exploding for no apparent reason. There is an informative document on the history of the Chart House.
 
Investigation: The investigation began at 7PM Saturday night Set. 19, 1998 when we met with Jayne Keedle of the Hartford Advocate. Jayne contacted us through our website and setup this investigation with the manager of the restaurant so she can write about the investigation. Rick Gamboa, the manager, was interviewed both by e-mail and phone prior to our visit. Jayne also arranged for psychic Joyce St. Germaine to assist us in this investigation. She arrived shortly after with her assistant Chris Cooke. Mr. Cooke has the ability to channel his body under hypnosis and allow spirits to communicate to Joyce openly. We set up most of our equipment around 9PM, but were not able to use our motion sensors due to the fact that there were too many people in the building. Joyce and Chris prepared for the session to contact the ghost of Abigail and it started with Joyce placing Chris into a hypnotic trance. The first entity they contacted was not Abigail but a dark and powerful spirit who became arrogant towards Joyce and our investigation team. He stated that there were many spirits dwelling the restaurant and when Joyce asked him for his name he replied, "I have many...who would you like me to be?" Joyce asked several more questions and this spirit did not want to comply so she sent it off. The next attempt reached what appeared to be a 41 year old man who was not aware that he had died or what year it was. He was still under the assumption that it was 1941 and demanded a whiskey! The man spoke in his own vulgar way towards Joyce as she made several attempts to explain that he had died and that this was the year 1998, but he did not believe her. Joyce then was able to get him to recount the last thing he remembered about his body state and the spirit said that his body was in a truck off the side of the road about a mile from the Chart House. Apparently this poor soul was killed in an automobile accident and was not aware of it. Joyce was able to help this spirit to the light and pass over. the last attempt in contacting Abigail yielded an 11 year old girl. This was amazing because under hypnosis, Chris curled into a helpless fetal position and his thumb in his mouth. The girl spoke shy and cautiously and stated that there were more children there that she played with but failed to identify them. We're not sure what happened to this girl, but based on some of the things she was saying it sounded as though she was abused by her parents. She was searching for her Grandma and Joyce was able to help this spirit find her grandmother and pass safely to the other side. this ended the investigation as Joyce and Chris both began to get very tired.
 

Joyce St. Germaine tries to communicate to the spirits, then checks the basement for spirit activity

 
Findings & Opinions:  We all experienced some strange things at this place such as cold spots and "uneasy" feeling and our laptop was acting peculiar at one point, but the most bizarre came when we first arrived at the restaurant. We sat at a table which was designated for our group on the second floor and we had just ordered some appetizers when a 9 year old girl walked up to Orlando and said "she knows you are here...she's watching you". We asked her if she could see "her" and the girl said "yes...but she is hiding from you". Orlando took a digital image of the girl and she left with her parents. After spending most of the night at the restaurant we shot 4 rolls of 35mm film and about 85 digital exposures while our video tapes and cassette recorders ran for about 2 hours. We found only three 35mm pictures that are questionable but, we were able to capture 18 digital photographs with strange anomalies ranging from Orbs & Globules to rays of psychical energy. And although we didn't come up with anything conclusive on video or audio we felt that the session Joyce conducted was helpful in passing the lost souls of the restaurant over to the next dimension. We believe that whatever spirits roamed in that restaurant have now crossed over into the next plain thanks to Joyce. We also believe there is a good possibility that other forms of energy could conceivably fill in the spaces left by those entities which crossed over therefore having continuing paranormal disturbances. This case is not yet closed and we are closely watching the progression of its activity. We would like to return to the Chart House for a follow up sometime soon and expect to find different challenges there.