Camera Battery Draining Episode

Friday, July 18, 2008, 8:30 p.m.

I decided to bring my new camera into work with me to take some pictures of some of the active areas around the lobby building to see if anything would show up in a photograph.  I already have around 100,000  photographs that I have taken on the battlefield where the soldier spirits have gifted me with their images, so I'm pretty familiar with the process. 

Most of the guests were already checked in and my co-worker had already left for the day, so I thought I would take a few quick shots around the inside of the building.  I snapped two quick pictures of the breakfast area, where cabinets open on their own, gunshots are heard, chairs are moved, etc., and decided to take some pictures of the inner office.

I was at the doorway to the office, walking in and looking down at my camera when it suddenly went dead.  I had placed a fully-charged battery in the camera before I arrived at work.  However, this has happened to me two previous times while taking photographs on the Gettysburg battlefield in an area notorious for cameras having their batteries mysteriously drained.

Of course, suspecting the battery-draining stunt was perpetrated by the soldier spirits at the hotel, I expected some fun activity that night.  They were very quiet.  However, I learned that we had a paranormal group staying in one of the historic suites.  Maybe the boys used their new found energy to play with them!

Since I have experienced this battery-draining phenomenon before, I didn't panic when it first occurred.  However, just to be certain it wasn't something to do with the camera itself, when I arrived home in the morning, I re-charged the battery.  Sure enough, after re-charging the battery and taking some photographs around my house, it worked perfectly.  Those boys!

I have taken my camera to work many times and this had never happened before.  And, as I mentioned above, it had only happened to me on the Gettysburg battlefield known for this phenomenon to be reported.  As a side note, the area on the battlefield where this does occur has been researched by historians.  The results of that intensive research of the local area revealed that an American Indian village was once located on that land.