The Voices at Lover's Leap

THADDEUS SHELTON OBSERVATORY

DEPARTMENT OF FOLKLORE AND ANOMALOUS OBSERVATION

CASE FILE SO-18-LL-04

THE VOICES AT LOVER’S LEAP

Primary subject: Jeffrey Winters Incident type: Disappearance / Suspected Fatality Provisional class: Auditory Personification Hazard grade: IV — Lethal Influence Suspected Local designation: “Lover's Leap / The Voices at Lover's Leap” Location: Lover’s Leap, Deep Springs, North Carolina Initial encounter: April 2018 Disappearance: May 15, 2018 Legal finding: November 15, 2018 Interview recorded: March 25, 2019

Interview subject: Jared Klein Interview conducted by: Anne Newsome, Associate Researcher

Case status: Unresolved Entity status: Unconfirmed Access: Internal Research

SO-18-LL-04-A · KLEIN INTERVIEW

Log begins:

NEWSOME: Anne Newsome, associate researcher, Shelton Observatory, conducting an interview with a Mister Jared Klein, former associate of a Jeffrey Winters, whose vehicle and personal effects were recovered from the Lover’s Leap trailhead on May 15, 2018. Prior to that discovery, Mister Winters left a note on Mister Klein’s vehicle indicating his intention to “go up to the Leap and look for Sadie.” Following an unsuccessful search of the cliff and surrounding terrain, Mr. Winters was declared by the state to be deceased on November 15, 2018. Mister Klein, how were you connected to Mister Winters?

KLEIN: We were like brothers. I mean, not really brothers, but my folks an his lived next to each other and we've known each other since we were in diapers.

NEWSOME: So very close friend then.

KLEIN: [voice cracking] Ye-yeah. Very close.

NEWSOME: So why don't you tell me how this all started? With the voices?

KLEIN: The voices. Well, I guess Jeff really started getting into trying to prove they was real a few months after Sadie died.

NEWSOME: Sadie?

KLEIN: His girlfriend. They'd say fiancée. He never asked, though. They just knew.

NEWSOME: Ah. Please continue.

KLEIN: So after Sadie died in that car crash, he really fell out. Like rock bottom. But suddenly he got a hair. He wanted to be a ghost hunter. He wanted to scientifically prove they existed. Like Doc Isaac up on River Road does on his podcasts and stuff.

So we got together and bought like a RadioShack worth of electronics on Amazon. He said he was going to make a... well, he described it like, you know them balls that they had in the movie Twister? With the Wizard of Oz stuff? He wanted to do that, but with spiritual detection equipment. And I went along with it. Helped him design it. I was just so happy that he was showing interest in something again. He was coming to the gym with me, really seeming like he was coming out of the rut that he'd been in.

NEWSOME: So what was he looking to detect?

KLEIN: Ghosts mostly. He said we had gear enough to detect ghosts, maybe even cryptids and aliens, based on the things he'd looked up and put in his Amazon cart.

[pencil noises as AR Newsome takes notes]

NEWSOME: Okay. So, the device. You were building it together?

KLEIN: Yeah, Jeff said we needed to keep it isolated from outside influences like temperature swings being outside. Couldn't do nothing about making it totally zero, but to help mitigate, we got one of those big Walmart coolers with the rubber seal and used that as the body of the equipment pod, since that'd help regulate its temperature. We added a line into the cooler, feeding power in from about twenty of those kinda batteries you put in flashlights and vapes? Jeff put 'em all in a box and welded them together. He said he'd seen a YouTube video on how those Tesla battery trays were made, and that's what he did. Electronics aren't really my thing, so I just trusted him on it.

NEWSOME: And what all was inside?

KLEIN: Well, some of it was probably those tornado-pod kinda sensors. Barometric pressure, wind speed, temperature, that kinda stuff. And then the standard affair for, like, ghost-hunting equipment. Mics, spirit box, EMF meters, Geiger counter—

NEWSOME: Geiger counter?

KLEIN: Yeah, according to Jeff, he'd seen a video about how when ghosts got near to 'em, it'd set 'em off like there was radiation.

NEWSOME: I did not know that.

[pencil noises]

NEWSOME: So you had all of these things in a cooler. How was it detecting wind speed from inside the cooler?

KLEIN: [laughs] Oh, no, ma'am. The sensor for that was on a boom that we fabricated. Jeff drilled a hole into the lid of the cooler and put a rubber gasket in it. Then he threaded a pipe he'd insulated into that and fed the cable down to the equipment. Then he sealed the pipe around the wire with caulk to try to prevent—how'd he put it?—distempered air from getting into the cooler.

NEWSOME: Mister Winters seems like he was being quite thorough.

KLEIN: It was like an obsession with him. He kept saying we had to do it right.

NEWSOME: So moving forward to the night that--

KLEIN: The night that he tested it. Yeah. So... I guess it was probably April? We went to Lover's Leap above town and brought the pod. We hauled it up to the jump-off, and then we tied Jeff up.

NEWSOME: Tied him up?

KLEIN: Yeah, like that trick the guy in the Odyssey did for the sirens. Jeff figured, based on the legends of them talking people into jumping, that it was something like that, and if he couldn't get to the physical edge because he was tied up, even if it was real, he'd be fine.

So we tied him up to a tree, and I went back down the trail a good ways. Enough for him to be alone, but if, like, a cat or something came out of the brush, he could holler for help. And we stayed there until morning.

He was ecstatic. He confirmed he'd heard the voices. The preliminary stuff from the equipment indicated it was real enough for him to get readings on it. We'd proved it.

I asked him what it said. He wouldn't answer. Didn't want me to listen to the tape. Said it was too personal.

Then... he withdrew again. Wouldn't answer texts, wouldn't answer calls. Wouldn't come out of his house. Wouldn't answer the door when I did stop at his house to make him see people.

And—and I—

[soft sobbing]

[Recorder cuts. Per written record, the unrecorded interruption was 10m 15s.]

KLEIN: Thanks. I needed to take a break.

NEWSOME: No problem. I understand. As interesting as this is to record for research at arm's distance, it was your friend, and that's crushing.

KLEIN: Yeah. It is. I just—I should have tried harder. Not let that closed door stop me. Maybe I could have— Maybe—

NEWSOME: Hey. Maybes are where minds go to redline for no reason. You didn't know.

KLEIN: Yeah. [sniff] Okay, so where were we?

NEWSOME: We were [sound of flipping paper] at where Jeff withdrew again. Wouldn't let you listen to the tape.

KLEIN: Yeah. So I tried for a few weeks to get up with him. But he wouldn't have it. So eventually I just... let it go. Said he'd come to me when he figured things out. Bu-but.

NEWSOME: But then he went back to the Leap.

KLEIN: Yeah. I had a note under my windshield wiper. This was probably the 10th? 11th of May? All that it said was, "She's up there. I've got to go back." Best believe I read that and lit blacktop up with the speed I drove out to the Leap. When I got there, I found his car.

NEWSOME: The car was reported as discovered—[flipping papers]—May 15th.

KLEIN: Right. Then that date. But the pod was in there and on, but—

NEWSOME: No Jeff.

KLEIN: No Jeff.

NEWSOME: Do you have anything else to add to this? Any further details?

KLEIN: No, ma'am. I think that's about it as far as what happened. I hate—I hate thinking about it. Him going up that trail in the middle of the night because he thought his dead girlfriend was there.

NEWSOME: Love does make people do strange things.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

APPENDICES

Mister Klein was kind enough to allow us to make copies of the files stored on the Ecto-Pod’s digital recorders. Apparently, the effects were released to the family, and they transferred ownership of the pod to Mister Klein. There were three intact files on the recorders, each of which has been summarized below.

SO-18-LL-04-B

APPENDIX A

The first file is titled 04042018_000013 and is of the event described in Mister Klein's interview. Present in the audio is Mister Winters, and one can hear a second voice talking to Jeff on the path above the cliff face. The spirit did identify itself as Sadie Williams, Jeff's girlfriend and reported fiancée, according to Mister Klein. The entity told Mister Winters, in the guise of Sadie Williams, that she forgave him for the car crash. She was happy that he didn't get killed with them. Of particular interest: Sadie Williams is the only fatality recorded in connection with the collision. Nevertheless, the second voice repeatedly uses plural constructions. Mr. Winters appears to understand the reference, responding: “A boy? He’s with you too?” No child, born or unborn, appears in the available accident report. Mister Winters began to sob and repeat his girlfriend's name before the EVP was overtaken with static.

Researcher’s note: North Carolina law recognizes an unborn child as a separate potential victim, irrespective of gestational age, when its death results from an unlawful act against the mother. No pregnancy, fetal death, or second potential victim appears anywhere in the Winters–Williams collision records available to the Observatory.

If the second voice’s claim is taken literally, Ms. Williams must have been in an extremely early stage of pregnancy—early enough that she had not informed Mr. Winters and that the pregnancy was not identified during postmortem examination. The voice nevertheless identified the fetus as male. It remains unclear whether this was information, invention, or bait.

SO-18-LL-04-C

APPENDIX B

In a file marked 04282018_193500, Mister Winters can be heard shuffling around the Ecto-Pod.

WINTERS: Wait. Is this fucking thing on?

[Jumbled noises, potentially the pod being opened to reveal the devices inside]

WINTERS: The digital recorder is on. Sadie? Baby? Is that you? Did you turn this on?

[silence]

WINTERS: Okay. Well, I guess I should shut this off then.

Researcher’s Note: While reviewing this file, a patterned oscillation appears between 14.1 and 14.6 Hz immediately after Mr. Winters speaks. When transposed upward by four octaves and corrected for playback speed, the signal resolves into a voice consistent with that recorded during the April encounter.

VOICE: Baby, no. Don't listen. It's—

The voice is cut off by Mister Winters terminating the recording.

SO-18-LL-04-D

APPENDIX C

In the final file on the digital recorder, marked 05152018_034344, Mister Winters can be heard turning on the pod and driving, with a single stop during which Mister Winters appears to exit the vehicle and immediately return. After a period of time consistent with driving from Mister Klein's home to the Lover's Leap parking area, the car is loudly put into park. Mister Winters speaks:

WINTERS: Sadie, I'm so so sorry. I'm sorry what I done to you. I shouldn'ta been driving. I shouldn't have made you come with me. I'm so so sorry.

[Mister Winters pauses for several seconds, heavily breathing]

UNKNOWN ENTITY, using the voice of SADIE WILLIAMS as in the first encounter: Come make it better, baby. Come see your son.

WINTERS: I love you, baby.

[Mister Winters exits the vehicle. There is dead air until Mister Klein can be heard outside of the car, calling for Mister Winters.]

SO-18-LL-04-E

APPENDIX D · SUPPLEMENTAL RECORDING

Mister Klein returned to the Observatory on April 10, 2019. He reported that he had been experimenting with his digital recorder while clearing Mister Winters’s residence pending its sale.

The submitted file is dated 04042019_122224, exactly one year after the initial recorded encounter.

No voices are audible during ordinary playback. A disturbance between 14.1 and 14.6 Hz was isolated and transposed into the audible range.

VOICE 1, UNKNOWN FEMALE: Baby, I’m so, so sorry. I tried to warn you. It wasn’t me, baby.

VOICE 2, UNKNOWN MALE: It’s okay. I’m with you.

[Guttural vocalization within the same frequency band.]

[Female scream within the same frequency band, decaying into static.]

Researcher’s Note: Mister Klein insisted on remaining while the signal was transposed into the audible range. He identified Voice 1 as Sadie Williams and Voice 2 as Jeffrey Winters. Neither identification can presently be verified.

The date of the recording—exactly one year after the initial encounter—is unlikely to be coincidental. More troubling is the unidentified vocalization preceding the apparent scream. If Klein’s identifications are accurate, the phenomenon may persist beyond the physical death of its victims and may not be satisfied merely by causing that death.

I recommend amending the provisional classification of the Lover’s Leap Voices to include possible postmortem persistence. Further conclusions would be premature.

END OF RECORD