When They Don’t Answer

I’ve been thinking about what happens when we ask the right question and still don’t get an answer.

I’m editing an investigation right now where we encountered several spirits gathered in a basement.

They seemed to be hiding.

Naturally, I wanted to know why.

Were they afraid?

Were they hiding from someone?

Did they know where they were?

Was there something we could do to help?

We asked.

And we didn’t get many answers.

That can be frustrating when your intention is to help. You know someone is there. You know they may need something. But knowing what to ask and being able to understand the answer are two very different things.

During the investigation, Morrighan explained something to me that I haven’t stopped thinking about since.

Sometimes spirits gather in places not because they are attached to the physical location, but because something about it feels familiar.

And that opened up an entirely different way of thinking about what we were experiencing.

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Prefer to listen? This Field Notes entry is available as an audio recording below.

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What Does This Place Look Like to Them?

When we walk into a basement, we know we’re standing in a basement.

We see the walls.

The stairs.

The windows.

We know what is upstairs and how to get outside.

We understand the physical space because we are experiencing it from this plane.

But what does that same place look like from theirs?

I don’t know.

Maybe none of us really can.

Morrighan explained that what we see may not be what they see at all. A place may look different on their plane or represent something entirely different to them.

That fascinates me.

Because suddenly a question as simple as, “Why are you hiding down here?” becomes much more complicated.

Maybe they don’t believe they are hiding.

Maybe they don’t understand where “here” is.

Maybe the place feels safe because something about it resembles somewhere they once knew.

And if they are lost or confused, asking, “Can we help you?” may be far more difficult for them to answer than it seems to us.

Help them do what?

Go where?

Leave what?

If they don’t fully understand their circumstances, how could they possibly tell us what they need?

When One Becomes Many

There was another part of Morrighan’s explanation that stayed with me.

Spirits who are lost can sometimes find one another.

One or two may gather somewhere that feels familiar or safe, and others in a similar state may be drawn to them.

Over time, a location can become a gathering place without the spirits necessarily having any connection to the property itself.

That completely changes the question of who belongs somewhere.

When we investigate a historic location, it’s tempting to begin with the history of the property.

Who lived here?

Who died here?

What happened here?

Those questions matter, and the historical research I do before an investigation can give us important context.

But not everyone we encounter has to belong to that history.

Someone may have arrived long after their own life ended.

Someone else may have followed.

And suddenly we are standing in a room communicating with people whose names may never appear in any record connected to the property.

There is something humbling about that.

The history can tell me who should be there.

The investigation tells us who actually is.

Trust Can Take Time

I think we sometimes expect communication to happen simply because we’ve made ourselves available for it.

We introduce ourselves.

We explain why we’re there.

We say we want to help.

So why wouldn’t someone talk to us?

But imagine experiencing that from the other side.

Three strangers walk into the place where you’ve been hiding.

They start asking questions.

They say they want to help you.

You don’t know them.

You may not understand what they’re doing there.

You may not even understand your own circumstances.

Why would you immediately trust them?

That’s something I think about more and more.

An investigation has a beginning and an end for us.

We arrive.

We set up our equipment.

We spend several hours asking questions.

Then we pack everything away and leave.

But whatever is happening at that location doesn’t begin when we walk through the door.

We’re entering something already in progress.

Sometimes a few hours simply aren’t enough.

The Importance of Intention

This is another reason intention matters so much to me when we investigate.

We never know who we’re going to meet.

Someone may be curious.

Someone may be eager to communicate.

Someone may be confused.

Someone may be carrying trauma.

And someone may be hiding because, for reasons we don’t yet understand, hiding feels safer than being seen.

I don’t want to walk into that situation demanding answers.

I want them to understand why we’re there.

That we’re listening.

That they don’t have to communicate with us.

And that if there is something we can do to help, we’re willing to try.

Sometimes being of service means helping someone cross over.

Sometimes it means helping them understand something.

And sometimes, I’m learning, it may simply mean showing up without asking them to trust us before we’ve given them a reason to.

Going Back

We were fortunate with this particular investigation.

We got to return.

And when we did, we learned more about what may have been happening in that basement and why those spirits may not have been ready to communicate with us the first time.

That story will unfold in the second part of the episode, so I’ll leave it there.

But editing these investigations after the fact gives me the strange privilege of watching what we knew at one moment beside what we would eventually learn.

On our first visit, I wanted answers.

Why are you hiding?

What are you afraid of?

How can we help?

Looking back now, I realize there was another question I should have been asking.

What would make you feel safe enough to talk to us?

Maybe that is the larger lesson.

We spend a lot of time during paranormal investigations trying to establish communication.

But communication requires more than someone willing to ask questions.

It requires someone on the other side who feels able to answer them.

And sometimes the most important thing we can offer isn’t another question.

It’s time.

Field Notes

Field Notes are personal reflections from my ongoing investigations, historical research, and conversations across the South. They are not meant to provide definitive answers, only honest observations gathered along the way.

Until next time…

Stay close.