By Dr. Joel Ramsey, The Paranormal Professor

Not every paranormal investigation ends with answers.

Some end with a decision: stay and collect more data, or protect your crew and get out.

This is the story of an investigation where I chose the latter and why, years later, I still don't have a complete explanation for what we captured that night.

The Case: A Warehouse with a Dark History

I was contacted by someone I met at a paranormal convention. They had been investigating an old factory warehouse and believed they had encountered a demonic entity.

The location had a violent past, reports of gang activity, fights among workers, and at least a few deaths that had occurred on the premises. By the time I was called in, the building had been abandoned for years.

The client had already experienced phenomena they couldn't explain:

• Low, guttural growling sounds

• The smell of sulfur (rotten eggs)

• Disembodied shadow figures moving through the warehouse, with no light source that could have caused them

They wanted a certified paranormal investigator to examine the site and determine what they were dealing with.

As someone who applies the Ramsey Communication-Based Investigation Protocol (RCIP) to every case, I don't rush to confirm demonic activity. But I also don't dismiss it. My job is to systematically investigate, rule out natural explanations where possible, and be honest about what remains unexplained.

So I gathered my crew and my equipment, and we entered the warehouse.

Phase 1: Pseudocognition Assessment - What Did the Client Believe?

Before any investigation, I need to understand what the client already believes. This is Phase 1 of RCIP: assessing the pseudoenvironment: the mental pictures people construct based on their expectations and prior experiences.

The client's pseudocognition:

• They believed a demonic entity was present

• They had already experienced phenomena (growls, sulfur, shadow figures)

• The warehouse's violent history reinforced their belief that something evil lingered there

• They were seeking validation or debunking, either "Yes, it's a demon" or "No, here's the natural explanation."

Understanding their belief didn't mean dismissing it. It meant recognizing that their prior experiences had primed them to interpret ambiguous stimuli through a demonic framework.

My job was to investigate the environment itself and see what we could document.

Phase 2: The Investigation - What We Captured

My crew and I stayed together as we moved through the warehouse. I don't split my team, especially in structurally unsafe locations. We work as one unit.

Equipment:

• Spirit box (for potential EVP communication)

• Digital audio recorder (to capture sounds outside normal hearing range)

• Camera (for visual documentation)

• Laser grid (to detect movement or disruption in empty spaces)

• Structured light depth sensor (Xbox 360 Kinect, capable of detecting skeletal and muscular movement in three-dimensional space)

As we moved through the building, the laser grid remained static. The spirit box produced only white noise.

Then something happened.

What we captured:

1. Kinect Skeletal Detection. For a brief moment, maybe 2-3 seconds, the structured light depth sensor registered a humanoid skeletal form. The figure appeared upright, roughly human-sized, then disappeared.

I checked the area immediately. No one from my crew was in that position. No reflective surfaces. No obvious explanation.

Could it have been a malfunction? Possibly. Kinect sensors aren't designed for paranormal work; they're gaming devices that can produce false positives under certain conditions.

But what happened next made me pause.

2. The Growl. Shortly after the Kinect detection, my digital audio recorder captured a sound.

A low, rumbling growl. Guttural. Sustained for several seconds.

I've reviewed this audio repeatedly. I've compared it to known animal sounds: dogs, coyotes, and feral cats. It doesn't match. The frequency is too low. The duration is too sustained.

Could it have been wildlife? Absolutely. The warehouse was abandoned, structurally compromised, with plenty of entry points. Raccoons and possums could easily have taken up residence. I didn't see any animals during the investigation, but that doesn't mean they weren't there. Nocturnal wildlife often stays hidden when humans are present.

A raccoon in distress or defending territory can produce surprisingly aggressive vocalizations. A possum, when threatened, can hiss and growl in ways that don't match their size.

So, wildlife remains a plausible explanation for the audio we captured.

But then came what happened next, and the timing was impossible to ignore.

3. The Sulfur Smell. As soon as we heard the growl immediately after capturing it on the recorder, we all smelled it. Sharp. Acrid. Sulfur. Rotten eggs.

It lasted maybe 10-15 seconds, then dissipated.

Sulfur smells in old industrial buildings aren't uncommon. Chemical residue from past processes, decaying organic matter, or sewer gas from broken pipes can all produce that odor.

But the timing was impossible to ignore; however, in investigation work, correlation doesn’t equal causation, but tightly clustered anomalies demand closer scrutiny than isolated events:

• Kinect skeletal detection → Growl on audio → Immediately, the sulfur smell appeared

• All within a short window

• All in the same area where the client had previously reported activity

From a scientific standpoint, I had to ask: What are the odds of three unrelated environmental anomalies occurring in rapid succession?

Phase 3: The Decision to Evacuate

As the lead investigator, I made the call: we were leaving.

Why?

1. Professional responsibility. Whether I'm conducting a paranormal investigation or performing my current work as a fire inspector, the principle is the same: When a situation feels wrong, you find your exit.

In fire inspection, if a property owner becomes aggressive or I notice something unsafe, I leave and reassess. The same logic applies to paranormal investigation.

2. Crew safety always comes first. No piece of evidence is worth risking someone's well-being. My crew trusted me to lead them safely. That meant knowing when to stop collecting data and get out.

3. I couldn't rule out a threat. Could the phenomena have been natural? Yes. Could they have been paranormal? Possibly. Could they have been dangerous? I didn't know.

And when you don't know, you err on the side of caution.

I called the investigation. We packed up our equipment and left the warehouse.

Phase 4: What I Still Can't Explain

Years later, this case still troubles me.

Not because I'm afraid of what we encountered. But I couldn't bring it to a definitive conclusion.

What I can explain:

• Industrial buildings can produce sulfur smells from chemical residue and decaying materials

• Old structures create sounds that can mimic growls through settling and thermal expansion

• Abandoned warehouses attract wildlife; raccoons and possums could easily have been living in the building and produced the growling sound

• Kinect sensors can malfunction or produce false positives

What I can't explain:

• The synchronized timing: the growl occurred, we captured it on the recorder, and immediately, within seconds, the sulfur smell appeared. (Please note that sulfur smells are often overemphasized in paranormal lore, which makes investigators especially sensitive to them when they appear)

• Why a potential animal vocalization would coincide exactly with a sulfur odor

• The fact that these phenomena occurred in the exact location where the client had previously reported activity

Could this have been a demon?

I can't prove it was. But I also can't definitively prove it wasn't.

What I can say with certainty is this: Something unusual happened in that warehouse. Whether it was paranormal, environmental, or a combination of factors I haven't yet identified, I don't know.

And I'm okay with that uncertainty.

Conclusion: The Cases That Stay With You

This investigation taught me an important lesson: Rigorous investigation isn't about always finding answers. It's about asking the right questions, following the evidence wherever it leads, and being honest when the evidence doesn't lead anywhere conclusive.

Did I encounter a demon that night?

I don't know.

Did I make the right decision to evacuate my crew?

Absolutely.

Because at the end of the day, my job isn't just to collect evidence. It's to protect the people who trust me enough to walk into dark, uncertain places.

And sometimes, protecting them means knowing when to leave.

Final Thoughts: Trust Your Instincts

If you're a paranormal investigator, whether professional or amateur, learn this lesson:

Your crew's safety always comes first!

No EVP, no photograph, no piece of evidence is worth risking someone's well-being.

And if your instincts tell you something is wrong, listen.

I've conducted over 200 paranormal investigations in my 20+ years in this field. Most end with clear, natural explanations. Some end with fascinating anomalies that warrant further study.

And a few, like this warehouse case, end with me walking away with more questions than answers.

That's the reality of serious paranormal research.

Dr. Joel Ramsey is a certified paranormal investigator and paranormal research scientist with a Ph.D. in Communication. He applies the Ramsey Communication-Based Investigation Protocol (RCIP) to unexplained phenomena. For investigation inquiries or speaking engagements, contact him at paranormalprofessor@yahoo.com.