Curious things go ‘THUMP’ in the night

About a week ago I embarked on my first ever ghost hunting adventure, accompanied by my fiancée Adam and my best friend Heather. We ventured to a Nodaway County oldie-but-goodie, Workman Chapel.

The day before the hunt I drove out to the chapel myself in the daytime. Having never been there before I wanted to acquaint myself with the area, and take some photos in the daylight.

Admittedly, going to a burned out chapel in the middle of nowhere by yourself is a wee bit creepy. Throw in a cemetery and you better bring a change of undies.

I circled the long abandoned chapel taking pictures, and at first didn’t find signs of anything paranormal. Then I had the brilliant idea to step inside the chapel so I could, “get interior photographs”. Ugh.

I climbed up the broken concrete steps and stood for a moment in the doorway, making sure no honey badgers, creepy crawlies, or ghoulies were anywhere in sight.

Satisfied I wasn’t going to be mauled upon entry I took a step into the building. And when my boot touched the floorboards, THUMP.

A very loud and distinct knock came from underneath the floor in the back right corner of the building. I quickly stepped back out onto the steps, afraid I’d awoken an animal that may have squeezed under the foundation of the building.

I listened for any more activity but heard nothing. So like any good idiot I stepped back inside. Once again, THUMP. Same noise, same corner of the chapel.

I stood my ground this time, and waited. THUMP, THUMP, THUMP. Every five seconds. I timed it. After getting thumped at for a solid 90 seconds, I began to feel ill and had a distinct sensation that someone was standing directly behind me.

And that my friends, is when I got the heck out of dodge.

I returned the next evening after sunset, armed with flashlights, a tape recorder, cameras, a spirit box, and two people to protect me.

Our first order a business was to examine the foundation of the chapel to see if there was any evidence of animal activity.

After a lot of flashlight shining and crawling around in the dirt, we all came to the same conclusion; nothing bigger than a raccoon was going to fit underneath the crumbling foundation.

The noise I heard the day before was too loud and too deliberate to be made by any raccoon. Those thumps had vibrated the floorboards, one every five seconds I was inside the chapel.

Suddenly feeling a lot more like Scooby-Doo and the gang instead of the Ghost Hunters, we decided to venture into the chapel.

We spent the first 15 minutes examining the graffiti that had been sprayed on the wall, carefully trying to avoid roosting bats and rotten floorboards.

Then suddenly, with enough force to scare the beejezus out of all of us, THUMP. From directly beneath us. I’m not ashamed to say my bladder control almost failed me in that moment.

Now, not twenty minutes earlier we had examined the underneath of the chapel’s foundation. There was nothing under there.

And that was when we all began to have a serious case of what I like to call, “the chilly-willies.” We moved out of the chapel onto the concrete steps to collect our thoughts.

After a few seconds we all heard the unmistakable sounds of horses’ hooves pounding on gravel, and even faint neighing sounds. But we saw no horses.

The only animals in a five mile radius of the chapel are the cows in a pasture a little ways down the road. And as any farm kid knows, cows in a pasture don’t sound like horses.

The rest of the night was filled with strange movements and sounds in the trees surrounding the cemetery and chapel, hearing men’s voices whispering, and I even caught sight of a pure black figure peering out at me from behind a large headstone.

After a couple of hours, we wrapped up our investigation and headed back to Maryville.

Locals have long speculated about the presence of the paranormal at Workman Chapel. After our nighttime investigation I have little doubt that there is something paranormal happening at the chapel.

What it is exactly I cannot say, but it doesn’t seem to be aggressive, just curious, and maybe a little lonely since it seems to get so excited when visitors come to call.