EP 7 & 8: Clay Pit - Part II & III

*SPOILER ALERT: The following article contains spoilers for Episode 6, 7 & 8. Before reading, listen to The Clay Pit - Part I , II, & III. Afterward, feel free to check out this "Behind-the-Episode" blog for additional info and photos! And visit our Patreon page for more extras!

Sara's sketches from the Clay Pit investigations

A Glimpse from My Point of View

by Sara

Being asked to write about the Clay Pit investigation from my perspective made me just a little nervous. How do I explain what goes on when I willingly put myself in these situations. I knew I didn't want to give an overview of what we experienced at the Clay Pit. That’s Stephen’s job, navigating through the story as it unfolds. I decided, instead, to I provide just a glimpse into this ability I have and how I’ve learned to use it so far.

It’s terrifying when you don’t know why you see and hear things other people cannot. Even more terrifying trying to explain it to someone else. I’m grateful that Stephen came into our lives when he did, but then he asked me to do the most terrifying thing in the world, walk into an area is suspected to be haunted, tell me what you see, and by the way, I’m going to record it all and share it in a podcast. Yikes! Believe me no one was more surprised that I said yes than me. Pretty soon I was having coffee surrounded by a mecca of spirits, trying for the first time to navigate through it all. It worked out and we moved forward to the Tavern. The Tavern investigation left me with images and feelings I cannot un-see or un-feel. It also left my husband with with quite an expectation to capture another once in a lifetime image. Then, Stephen said Clay Pit. An immediate series of images formed - a ladder, a man caring a box, a woman in a cinched waistline dress and a long dimly lit tunnel with arched stone supports.

I allowed the curiosity to win. To be fair, I’d been to the Clay Pit before as a patron with my family. I knew there were spirits there but I didn’t remember feeling frightened or threatened. During this time there were a lot of things going on in my personal life. I remember not feeling my best as I circled the Clay Pit for parking. I calmed the anxiety as I ascended the concrete steps to the Clay Pit entrance and glimpsed Stephen already chatting up the staff. We went through and I did my best to tie all the pieces together but I left feeling unsatisfied with the whole process. I had trouble focusing and struggled to filter out other spirits that didn't belong there.

Wait, perhaps there is a need to explain “the process”. Imagine yourself entering a large room filled with hundreds of strangers. All of them want to talk to you, but you only want to talk to the three or four who are associated with one particular topic. So, you make an announcement, “If you’re not associated with this topic, please leave.” The room begins to clear and you are now left with about twenty strangers. Then you make you're second announcement, “I’m opening this door so you can come in and speak to me about this topic.” The strangers are grateful for the open door, but do not communicate in the same manner that you do.

Instead, all of them send you snapshots of what they believe is the best representation of what they want to say. The phrase, “a picture’s worth a thousand words” comes to mind. Yeah, you have no idea. Now you are left putting together a picture puzzle without all the pieces. If you get it wrong, don’t worry, they will give you more cryptic puzzle pieces to work with that may or may not fit. Just for fun, let’s sprinkle the outside viewers questions and also find the correct picture for that answer. That’s “the process”. Fun right?

There is a lot of expectation for me to put the pieces of the puzzle together. Unfortunately, the method is not as predictable as it feels it should be. Sometimes things that don’t make sense until it’s revisited in retrospect, or until the obscure happens. A great examples, the feet in the ceiling. I saw them when I first walked in, but didn't mention it until I knew it was significant. Then there’s things you can't ignore like the fire. Thick black smoke everywhere and flames that licked at my feet. Then Dowdy, a spirit that hides inside an energy loop that he really shouldn't even know is there. April, a beautiful headstrong woman, who hair wasn’t red at all by the way, that loves to touch people.

Definitely, I did not expect the dark shadow figures in the mirrors and how the dark voids rode the streams of energy that flowed in the mirrors, and the familiar but yet unfamiliar spirit of a man eating his invisible meal quietly in the main dining area mirror. Both not there when we returned on our next two visits.

You’re wondering, is it really all true. Can Sara really see and talk to spirits. Don't worry, I’m just as skeptical as you are. Remember this is all new to me, interacting with spirits. Thankfully, Stephen is a seeker of the truth and he has a method of testing me. Although annoying at times, how he seeks the truth for the story I pray gives you trust, but on my side it’s taught me to keep my own skepticism active but still trust myself.

-Sara

Photos and Notes from Stephen

The Clay Pit - 1601 Guadalupe St. Austin, TX

1st Floor Main Dinning Room - Mirror

This is the first mirror Sara saw on her first investigation. It was here that she began to feel uneasy about the mirrors and where she saw the first black shadow figure. She also witnessed a man with a mustache regularly, but he seemed to have no connection to the stories surrounding the building, so I didn't include her notes on this man.

Look up! This is where Sara sees the feet hanging from the ceiling that we later learned were just the feet of the spirits in the loop upstairs

This is the "door in the floor" Sara was looking for on the 1st investigation

Looking down through this door in the bar down into the cellar

Sara told us that there was an old ladder here in the past

Can you see the archway below the paintings? Bali theorized that this could have been a tunnel with stairs leading down into it before being bricked over

Rene was sitting at this table you see here when the ball of smoke floated down the stairway and appeared to look at us - we later learned that might have been Dowdy spying on us

This is the area on the 1st floor April supposedly comes up to hang out when she's not in the cellar. Notice the 2nd floor stairwell by the host station, and the cellar stairs behind the same station.

This is the 1st floor bar where the stones were thrown from the 2nd floor stairwell on a couple occasions

2nd floor stairwell where Sara believed Dowdy might roam

2nd floor ballroom and bar - this is exactly the area Sara continually saw Dowdy hanging out in the loop

These are the three upstairs mirrors behind the 2nd floor bar. These are the mirrors that Sara was most nervous about on our 1st investigation because of the shadows in them, but this is also where the photograph taken by Adrea from Maine captured something quite unusual.

This is the swinging door beside the 2nd floor bar that I saw move twice on our last investigation

A glimpse down the long ballroom heading toward the Bombay Room on the 2nd floor - the party loop goes about half way through this room, then stops.

This open door leads to the Bombay Room - where Sara found Steadman - the closed doorway to the left was the doorway where Sara found the coin that supposedly was keeping Steadman trapped in this room

Right between the green base board and the wood floor is where Sara discovered the penny. Or as Steadman called it, the "Abraham Lincoln"

This is the penny Sara found and gave to me.

She said it was another medium's coin and they had done something to keep Steadman trapped in the Bombay Room. With this coin gone, Steadman was now free

The black stuff you see smeared all over this attic door is from hands covered in soot from being up there

This was the first thing I saw when I opened the attic door.

There was so much black soot all over the entire attic for as far as I could see

Look all the way down - do you see the limestone wall back there? It's also covered in soot. This is what made me believe that the fire must have happened here and not that this wood was salvaged from Bertram's other building that burned down in a devastating fire.

Okay, so now I'd like to share the photograph that Andrea from Maine was kind enough to share with me. This photo came to me May 1st. Here is the original photo, unedited:

Original photo taken by Andrea - unedited

Andrea's friend can be seen standing in the mirror on the left, with her phone raised about to take a photo. But if you look in the middle mirror, you'll notice something that looks a bit out of place.

A closer look - zoomed in

Negative image

When I sent this image to Sara and asked her what she saw, she text me back saying, "That's Dowdy"

In all, this was yet another fascinating case where I witnessed and discovered things that were hard to deny. I still don't think I've gotten definitive proof of anything paranormal yet, but I feel satisfied knowing I'm actually making myself scratch my head and wrestle with the honest fact that I cannot deny there are a lot of really strange and impossible things unfolding before my eyes, and honestly, I'm just glad I have a you listeners out there with me so I'm not doing this all alone.

P.S. I'm really excited to share what's coming next on Episode 9. Make sure you follow me on Instagram or Facebook. I'll be teasing what's coming very soon!

Thanks for listening and as always, stay restless out there!

-Stephen Belyeu