Conrad Aiken House

The Orbs

We came to 288 East Oglethorpe with an infrared video camera and several digital voice recorders. These items are part of every modern ghost hunter's equipment, and while some claim that the "orbs" they photograph are the spirits of the dead, not everyone accepts that notion. Yet when such things are recorded but not seen, it certainly inspires interesting discussion.

Conrad Aiken

Dr. Morgan, the current owner, opened the home and stayed to see what might happen. I set the voice recorders out on the porch and in one of the rooms that we believed had been Conrad's bedroom, near the master bedroom where the murder-suicide incident had occurred. Dr. Morgan was aware of the Aiken family history, during the nineteenth century, of mental instability and the father's intense fear that it would ultimately claim him. He assured me that there were records that indicated that the man had been mentally ill, including the bizarre poetry he wrote.

We set up the camera in the master bedroom. Almost at once, we saw a solid white orb fly across the room, away from us. In fact, we caught quite a lot of activity on the film, and while we were intent on this, the front door downstairs slammed shut. It could have been a breeze, of course, but it startled us.

We tried the camera in different rooms on all three floors, and had some luck in the downstairs kitchen. Upon viewing the film later, we counted around fifty orbs, most of which had occurred in the master bedroom. So the following evening, the doctor let us in again, this time with voice recorders. Again, once we were upstairs in the master bedroom, the front door slammed shut.