Investigation Report

Location: Birdcage Theater, Tombstone, Arizona
Date: 23 Sept 2006
Personnel Participating: Donovan's Ghost Patrol, Bob, Cody, Kristin, David, Kat, Ashley
Weather Conditions: Clear
Humidity: 27%
Geomagnetic Storm Activity: Inactive
Temperature: 84
Number of Photos taken: 564
Number with possible targets: 4
Average EM Readings: 4 nt
Average M fields Readings: 2 mg
Average E Field Readings: 1 vpm
Cold Spots detected: None
Hot Spots Detected: None
Olfactory Phenomena: None
Visual Phenomena: Sighting of unexplainable shadow
Type of Investigation: Ghost Hunt, Media

Location Description and History

It opened in December of 1881 and closed its doors in 1889. During its short business life, the Bird Cage was the wildest place in the west! The Bird Cage is named after its thirteen little cribs that hang from the ceiling where ladies of the night plied their trades. Twenty dollars a night, would buy a gentlemen a bottle of whiskey and a lady for the night.

Different from the way Hollywood has portrayed it, no respectable lady would have ever entered the Bird Cage. The longest single poker game in history was played in the basement gaming area. Eight years and four months of one continuous poker game!

The theater is very interesting because of its antiquities. It adds to the possibility of a residual haunting.Most of the open spaces that used to contain tables for its patrons is now replaced by historical objects, much like a mini museum. we also noticed that the piano near the stage is the original one that was placed there over a century ago.This is a picture of the famous Bird Cage Theater (lower left), as it looked after it closed in 1889.

The Bird Cage was literally boarded up for about fifty years, before it was reopened as a tourist attraction. Besides remodeling the outside to prevent it from being destroyed by weather, the Bird Cage is an original Tombstone building. Most of Tombstones original buildings were completely destroyed by one of two fires that took place during the 1880's.

In the 1880s it was not only a theater, but also served as a saloon, gambling hall and brothel. It was open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week - even on holidays. The New York Times called it, "the wildest, roughest, wickedest honky tonk between Basin Street and the Barbary Coast." That statement was well deserved, since the Bird Cage was the scene for twenty-six deaths during its eight years of business.

Doc Holliday dealt Faro from time to time at the Bird Cage Theatre. One night Johnny Ringo, who hated Holiday with a passion, was passing Doc's table. When Doc slurred, "Care to buck the tiger, Johnny? It's the gustiest game in town." Ringo wheeled around, removing his bandana and yelled back, "care to grab to the other end of this bandanna, this is the deadliest game in town?"

Doc stood and said with a smile, "Sure Johnny, I'm your huckleberry and this may be my lucky day." When two men grab opposite ends of a bandanna, they fire at each other, at point blank range. Normally this would kill both men, however Ringo was drunk and slow on the draw. At the last second Curly Bill grabbed at Ringo's gun and yelled, "Hell Doc he's drunk!" as both men fired and missed. Holiday, who was also in a drunken stupor answered, "Bronchos, I drink more by 10:00 AM, than he can all day." Holiday then walked off.

This event is known as the handkerchief dual and it took place in the Bird Cage Theatre, between the Faro Table and the Orchestra Pit. The ladies of the night or soiled doves, worked the customers of the Bird Cage 24 hours a day. The ladies plied their trade in cribs suspended from the ceiling in the building. There are 14 cribs which line the side of the gambling hall in the Bird Cage, 7 on each side of the room. The ladies would close the drapes to entertain their clients with champagne, kisses and other favors of the trade.

Today the floor of the Bird Cage has been converted into a museum, but the theater's namesake - the famous "bird cages" where ladies of the night sold pleasures to cowboys and miners - are still intact. You can see their red curtains in this photo. The old song, "She's only a bird in a gilded cage" by Arthur J. Lamb was written for the "tainted angels" of the Bird Cage Theater. Today, though, a visitor can walk through the museum-floor and soak in the history of this wonderful old place. Historic figures such as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Bat Masterson once walked on these very floorboards.

Reported Phenomena

The sounds of laughing, yelling, and music have been reported to pour out of the theater at night. Visitors during the day have smelled fresh scents of cigar smoke and the sharp odor of whiskey, even though neither are allowed there now, nor have been for many years past. Testimonies by tourists and Bird Cage employees recount sightings of people wearing period clothing from the 1800s, and in particular, a man in black wearing a visor walking has been witnessed walking across the stage. Some of the sounds seem to come from the balconies above the main floor.

The Investigation

We set up our camera system and began the investigation by running teams of two through the location in 30 minute intervals. The only suspicious activity observed by our group was in the first 30 minutes of the ghost hunt.

While recording audio for the radio broadcast, two of the radio employees felt an unusual cold spot that was accompanied by a feeling of being watched. Cody moved to the base of the stairs and took a photo of the staircase and a unusual image appeared in the photograph. After the hunt was over, it was discovered that the audio recording from that point forward recorded nothing but static. However the sound was fine whenever the recorder left the theater.

Two other unusual photographs were taken from the stage looking towards the front of the theater. Both contain a rather odd "shadow" that changes olcations during the duration of the two photos. The photos taken before and after these two are completely normal with nothing substaintial in them.

Photographs

Click on the thumnail to view the larger image

Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP)

Question	Possible Answer
Is this the Birdcage Theater?	Sounds like "Lookie girls he has a two inch weiner"
How many whores are here?	Who the hell do you think you are?
What year is it?	Hard to understand, 8, 1, 2?
Any outlaws wanna say anything?	Also hard to understand

Initial Conclusions

Photograph 2231

This photograph was taken during an EM event that was accompiened by a perceived cold spot and the feeling of being watched.

A surface plot analysis of the photograph shows that the oject is reflecting the colors on the wall to the left. We were also able to determine that the object is three dimensional and has a refraction indice of 1.000449.

If the refractive index of a medium is not constant, but varies gradually with position, the material is known as a gradient-index medium and is described by gradient index optics . Light travelling through such a medium can be bent or focussed, and this effect can be exploited to produce lenses , some optical fibers and other devices. Some common mirages are caused by a spatially-varying refractive index of air.

The second photograph of interest .


	Another interesting photograph is 2296. at first the object in the photograph was dismissed as dust until it was studied closer. First of all, the diffraction rings are not typical of a airborne polluntant. Secondly, when the photograph was put through a thermal analysis, it was discovered that the object is radiating heat.

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