I'm not sure if this is in the right place, but this seemed appropriate. Our newly formed team went on our first investigation in an old graveyard this past weekend. We have one member who is experienced, but the rest of us are just starting. Anyway, we had some weird experiences with bugs and I wanted to know if any of you have ever run into similar situations or have ideas about what caused the strange behavior.

The first thing was the mosquitoes, or complete lack of them. I live in western Kentucky and the cemetery is only about 15 minutes from my house. I can walk outside during the day and get swarmed. They are so bad this year that I have scars from the bites I've gotten over the summer just feeding my chickens. I don't go out at night unless I have to because they are so thick. In spite of this, and in spite of the fact that this cemetery is surrounded by acres of deep woods and only accessible by a gravel road cut through those woods, there were no mosquitoes at all. We went Friday and Saturday. None of us got bitten or even buzzed. My first thought was there is nothing here for them to feed on, but the woods are full of animals.

That leads me to the next missing bug. Deer ticks are worse than they have ever been this year. I got a dozen on me just from being in my backyard for a couple of hours BBQing. Deer like to play in my yard and steal tomatoes from my garden early in the morning. We scared a family of deer out of the cemetery the first night, and we got into some tall weeds while checking out a few overgrown head stones. No ticks of any kind. Maybe the caretakers spray for ticks, but I doubt it. They only mow the grass. They don't even blow the grass clippings off the newer grave markers. I thought the lack of ticks was weird. What do you think?

The last thing was the weirdest. The ground was covered with fireflies. They would not fly or move at all, but just sat there all night both nights blinking occasionally. My sister found an article that said this is how female fireflies act during mating and camera flashes make them think a male is wanting to mate. Okay, that makes sense. But why was it only inside the graveyard fence? There is a small field on one side that is fenced off because it isn't part of the cemetery. It's overgrown pretty bad, but there are no trees so the female fireflies there should have been affected by our camera flashes too. Especially since I stood against the short, barb wire fence while taking pictures of head stones there. From the fence over through the field and all through the woods that weren't part of the cemetery the fireflies were swooping and flying around. None of the flying ones would cross the fence into the cemetery. Have any of you experienced this before? Do you know of any reason for this behavior? If it makes any difference, the fireflies here are generally called lightning bugs. They light up green instead of white or yellow like the fireflies in most places.

I'd love to hear what you think, regardless of whether you think it's paranormal or not.

I still haven't been able to find out who the owner or caretaker of the cemetery is. I'm wanting to ask them a lot of questions when I find them. We went back last weekend to poke around some, and found a great deal of evidence of them moving headstones. They seem to be moving all the old ones in order to sell plots in the prettiest part of the cemetery. Bug spray seems a bit more possible now, since the old marble headstones have been cleaned and bleached white. I suspected the headstones were being moved around on the first visit because families were split up or seemed to be stuck anywhere. I now have pictures that show headstones in new places, holes from those headstones that are fresh or planted with new grass, stones with chain marks and chips out of them that were unmarked in the first pictures, and empty spots where I got pictures of headstones before. No one seems to know or care. The place should be a historical site since it was originally a cemetery for colored Union soldiers in the Civil War.

In spite of the disrespect shown to the people buried there, there is nothing negative in the place. The feeling in the place is calm and warm. You feel loved and protected, that's the only way I can describe it. We got lots of orbs, most natural but some that may be spirits. We recorded quite a few EVPs including everything from singing to people answering us or talking to us. We had a lot of personal experiences. The place is very active.

Thanks for the props, Thomas. I try to take notice of everything around me. I'm the one in the group who does things like taking pictures of the moon coming through the trees or cars or planes going past so that I know what they look like and can identify those kinds of things in other pictures. It helps keep us from seeing spooks where there isn't anything.