Scott (Scotty) Rogers is official Tech Geek at Mississippi Gulf Coast Paranormal. MGCP recently conducted an overnight investigation at Beauvoir, the Jefferson Davis Home and Presidential Library in Biloxi, Mississippi, which received national press coverage. MGCP is a collection of close friends and family with over two decades of combined experience investigating the Paranormal. Using most of the Technology available to the field, they gather both intuitive information and technical data to try and help property owners understand and resolve paranormal events. They also offer a variety of services from lectures and consultations to investigations and resolutions.
Please give our readers a little background on Mississippi Gulf Coast Paranormal. When and why was the group formed, and what is your approach to investigating the paranormal?
MGC Paranormal was formed by a collective of like minded individuals, friends and family, who have a passion for learning and understanding more about the field of Paranormal Investigating. We have a widely diverse background included in our membership, literally everything from the Medical Field to Law Enforcement. This diversity helps us view information and data from different perspectives. Many of us have had personal experiences in the past, some have not. But together we all have questions of various sorts that we hope to discover answers to on this journey.
Our approach is technical oriented yet enhanced by intuitive information. Since it’s difficult to present Intuitive information about a case to a client as ‘Hard Evidence’ we don’t entirely dismiss the Intuitive information but instead utilize it as a guideline in our attempts to obtain ‘Hard Data’ by means of Video, Photographic or Audio recordings.
Prior to your investigation of Beauvoir, what are some of the most interesting investigations MGCP has conducted, and what is the most compelling evidence you have found so far?
One very interesting case we conducted recently was at an undisclosed location (by request of owner). The owners and family had been under attack several times by unseen forces. The land had a very interesting history related to the development and progress of the entire area but had fallen to decay. We conducted both a night and daytime Investigation both yielding substantial hard data as evidence of something Paranormal occurring there. The story has not entirely unfolded and we hope to return to gather more information in solving the mystery surrounding this property.
One of the most interesting pieces of evidence we took from this location was a video shot of us walking out from a wooded trail. Please Note on this day the Temp was at 94 degrees with about 80% humidity creating a heat index higher than 100 that day. As we exited a trail out of the woods we crossed a spot where a cold draft was blowing. For a second I was more interested in taking advantage of this and cooling off, lol. But we pulled out our thermometer gun and EMF detectors and got busy, we narrowed the search down to one point on the ground that read 78.9 degrees. (there are no underground water/sewage/electrical lines on this property) Another team member felt compelled to ask the question “was somebody hurt here?” which sent the EMF to maximum red indicating a yes response. Who? we don’t know but hope to find out on another trip to this location.
As the first paranormal team to investigate Beauvoir (Confederate President Jefferson Davis’ home), what challenges did MGCP have to overcome to gain access to the site? What attracted you to Beauvoir?
Our group as well as untold numbers throughout the years, have tried to gain access to Beauvoir unsuccessfully. In light of the recent change in Administration, we thought it wouldn’t hurt to try it again. We contacted staff at Beauvoir by email and requested a meeting to just sit down and talk about the possibility of doing this. We were pleasantly surprised to get a reply from Kitsaa Stevens (Events Coordinator) who arranged to meet with us. We gathered all material that we had to demonstrate to them what we could possibly bring to them in way of an Investigation. I believe of the 60 or so pieces I prepared, we had time to show only a few, lol.
They were so receptive to the idea and had pretty much decided already that this was going to happen. You cannot imagine how excited were. For locals, including ourselves, this place is a Jewel Of The Coast. Most of us including myself can recollect memories of Primary School Field Trips to tour this place. The history it represents is phenomenal, and as a Paranormal Team we had no desire other than doing the best job we could to bring some of this history Alive!
What ghost stories about Beauvoir had you heard before launching the investigation, and did MGCP find anything to substantiate those stories? Did your investigation turn up any new information or correct any misconceptions?
On several of our preliminary tours of the location, talking to staff and interviewing them of their accounts we discovered Tour Guides who consider seeing Jefferson Davis himself standing in the hall of the Main House an average occurrence. His wife Varina doesn’t often make an appearance but the smell of freshly cut roses from her garden are often caught in the house as well as the odor of cigars from the Gentleman’s Parlour. Other visitors recall and have photographed Jefferson Davis’ daughter Winnie, in the house many times, Other often ask about the little Confederate Soldier Boy dressed up in his greys walking or running throughout several areas of the property, to which they get the reply “we have no boy re-enactors here today” Since Beauvoir is closed to visitors at night, these hundreds of accounts all occur during the daytime! As far as cases are concerned? This place is unreal!
As far as evidence? We have hard data collected indicating the presence of individuals inside the house and on the grounds. At present we cannot conclude but speculate as to who they are. We think we may have audio recording of both Jefferson Davis and his Daughter Winnie. We know we have audio evidence possibly of the Confederate Soldier Boy captured during an EVP session in the cemetery. We have video indicating spirits in both Winnie’s Bedroom and the Music Room (where seemingly a party was occurring).
There was one audio piece we caught in the sub level under the home where was kept a room for Ice Block storage and a well, that now dry, used to serve as a fresh water supply for the home. During an EVP session there, one of our investigators asked the question “Are you the one who was pushed into the well?” to which we caught the voice of a young male answering “yeah”. This of course just gave us more questions in regards to a possible mystery that occurred there. Hopefully we’ll find out more from this male who answered us.
Beauvoir Portrait and Music Room, photo by MGCParanormal
After spending two nights at Beauvoir, do you believe the home is haunted? What, if any, unusual activity occurred during the investigation?
As Kitsaa Stevens (Events Coordinator, Beauvoir) would say, “haunted is a word that for the most part comes with a socially accepted negative stigma attached.” If there was a more acceptable way to say it, I would say, “Yes, beyond a doubt we can say that at Beauvoir – History Comes Alive!”
Although we were able to gather data associated with many of the claims, we were a bit surprised by something else we found. The high likelyhood that at any time you will run into the spirit of some child there. On the second night after making a statement regarding that, I was informed of the fact that once the property housed an orphanage as well.
Did you anticipate such a positive response from the media in regards to your investigation? What was the public’s reaction to the live feed cams you had running throughout the night? Was anything spotted on the live feed?
I was hoping for the sake of drawing more attention to Beauvoir that we would get a little media coverage but honestly had no idea what to expect. It was amazing the number of media organizations that stepped in to cover this. Of course we wanted some of that spotlight for ourselves, but to be more honest? We really wanted this to ultimately benefit Beauvoir. This facility is almost entirely run from donations, grants and ticket sales to tours. Everything we could do to swing the spotlight in their direction did nothing but make us happy.
MGCP’s Facebook feed mentioned using some new equipment during the Beauvoir investigation. What was this equipment, and did you achieve any results with it?
Ha, I was hoping you would skip this question. All of the new wireless electronic equipment we were field testing work very poorly or not at all. I made the statement before that I should have seen this rash of electronic failures coming, since on 3 preliminary daytime visits we experienced exactly the same thing. Systems that I’m well versed in using from previous cases and had tested only days prior to this case, suddenly failed to work at all. As one of the tech geeks for the group, it was a nightmare for me! It came to the point where we just had to say “this is the best we can do with this set up, let’s pick alternate methods, recover and just get to work.”
How can our readers contact Mississippi Gulf Coast Paranormal if they have any questions or want to learn more about your team?
Anyone can submit a request or inquiry regarding any of our different services directly to us using our Contact page at www.MGCParanormal.org We’ve also just booked as Special VIP Paranormal Investigation Team at Geek-O-Nomicon www.whynotgeek.com in December. We’ll be conducting several Panels and have a booth there to enjoy some chill and chat time. We love what we do, and we love sharing it with anyone who is foolish enough to get us started talking.
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