Alisha Puentes, a member of the paranormal investigation group Revenant Watch, discussed scary locations in the Rio Grande Valley during a Science Fiction and Fantasy Group virtual presentation Wednesday.
Puentes, administrative coordinator for the University Library and co-founder of Revenant Watch, provided details about the places and things the group investigates.
“We’ve done the more well-known locations,” she said. “We’ve done the La Borde House, we’ve done the San Juan hotel, the Mercedes fire station, but we also focus a lot on home investigations. We do those so that people can feel safe in their homes and feel like they own their own space. They don’t have to worry about things that are going on in their house.”
Puentes said there are people who want to keep the investigations anonymous, and the group respects that decision. On the other hand, there are people who give Revenant Watch permission to upload their findings on social media.
Puentes said before any investigation, the group researches the location.
“When we decide that we want to investigate, or that we think we want to investigate, what we try to do is we always get permission from whoever the current owner is,” she said. “So we have to do research. We have to find who that is. Then, we often have to sign waivers to even be in these locations because, that way, the owners are safe. … If anything were to happen, it’s on us, right? We are the ones that are there.”
Puentes said Revenant Watch notifies law enforcement about these investigations, especially when it’s a building that is shut down or abandoned, such as the San Juan Hotel.
She said the old firehouse in Mercedes has the most paranormal activity.
“The old firehouse that is in Mercedes, which was a fire station, and then before that I forget what year it was, but it started off with, like, this city jail as well,” Puentes said. “So the jail cells are still in there, so they don’t actually use it as a fire hall anymore.”
She said the group recorded electric voice phenomenon there.
“We got some really good EVPs in there,” Puente said. “… So that’s when you use, like, a digital recorder. … We got some really good samples of those. We had some shadows that happened there.”
She said the group uses old and new technology to collect evidence in its investigations.
“Old tech would be things such as putting a ball, specifically when there’s kids spirits there in the locations,” Puentes said. “We’ll put like a bounce ball out or we’ll put like a little doll, something like that. And then we’ll put a camera on it so that it would record if it moves or things like that. So we’ll use trigger objects like that. We also use a box that has sand in it. So we put that down and we tell the kids, ‘If you’re here, if you wanna say anything, you can draw on the sand,’ and things like that. That’s a little bit newer. We haven’t used it as much.”
She said they use dowsing rods and tarot cards, which are old tech. The new tech are the electromagnetic field detectors, the K2 device that measures the electromagnetic energy in the air, and walkie-talkies to communicate with the group.
To learn more about Revenant Watch, visit Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.
The Literature and Cultural Studies department hosted the virtual event.
This is Celeste Cruz for Vaquero Radio.
