Late on Tuesday night, three of our staffers met in the dark basement of our studios to explore the unknown with the help of a Ouija board. Everyone has their own opinions about how the board actually works, from it being your subconscious thoughts, to actual spirits communicating, or just being completely fake– but one thing's for sure, after our experience, I plan on never being alone at the studios at night ever again.

One of the reasons why the Ouija board originally became popular back in the 1800s, and why it still remains as such a novelty today, is because people want to believe. They need to believe that something else out there is powerful, and this sure makes it seem so. In fact, before the creators of the board could even get a patent, they had to demonstrate and prove that it actually worked in the way they claimed it did.

After holding our séance, I think it's safe to say that we all became believers of the spirits that are apparently living within the walls of our studios. The board works by each participant lightly placing their finger on the plastic planchette and then asking questions in attempts to communicate with the paranormal. The spirits answer by guiding the planchette to letters if they are trying to spell something out, numbers for an age or year, or they will also go to the actual "yes" or "no" words that are written on top of the board. Some of the answers we got were shocking, funny, and downright scary.

We tried to connect with the spirits that we were talking to– discovering that there were a few children present who we think were ages two, five, and six, one guardian angel named Sara and another who's last name started with a W, and a 62-year-old man who was trying to send us a message to tell one of our other co-workers. At one point when we asked Sara if she had anything to ask us, she spelled "was remembe," as if she was trying to ask if she was remembered. We asked one of the spirits what they do here in the building and where they hang out, and it replied with "HAL" and "BZ," meaning in the hall and busy. Most spirits are weak, so they might not have the power to spell out whole words. After asking where one of the spirits used to live, it responded "RD" for road.The whole thing was creepy and emotional, but one of the weirdest things was when we asked the 62-year-old how he died and he spelled out gas. It just so happened that our studios reeked of gas all morning, and after relaying the message he had wanted us to tell our co-worker, which was "Awe" and then the sun symbol, it was even eerier to find out that his dad had recently passed away. Was the spirit trying to communicate with his son?

Throughout the séance we kept hearing strange noises coming from the the other side of the room and up in the closet. If that wasn't spooky enough, at one point, we noticed the candle flickering in a completely different way than it had been all night. My eyes and nose literally started running out of nowhere– not at all like that before, or immediately after exiting the building either. Another weird thing was when Jill mentioned that you're never supposed to buy your own Ouija board or throw one away. You have to have it gifted to you or find it, and either leave it in a house or burn it when you no longer want it. Before even knowing this fact, I was thinking about where I had gotten the board from, and sure enough, I never bought it, it was from an old house that I lived in and happened to take with me.

Overall, we definitely had an intense experience summoning spirits. Going in to it, I can speak for myself in saying that I was a bit skeptical and didn't really think it would actually work. I was way wrong. The spirits did say that we could contact them again sometime, and for the most part, were very communicative and friendly, however, this is something I would only do at the office, never in my own house, because it seriously was pretty freaky.

 

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