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Ground Penetrating Radar Survey 1
PHASE 3 For more than 100 years, reports have circulated that a mass grave had been dug about 1890 to bury the remains from unidentified sites in the original city cemetery. Those reports were to be put to the test. Nate Ebel and Chris Wagner spent Saturday, 19 July, working with Mr. Branting and Jim Doolittle (USDA) to conduct a careful ground penetrating radar survey of a section of Normal Hill Cemetery where an unmarked mass graves was long reported to have existed. Pulsing radio beams down to a depth of almost 2 meters, the team tested along transect lines at five different positions a grave might occupy. Each activation of the unit produced a profile of the area.
After processing, a complete series of profiles were stitched together to produce a 3-D scan of an entire section, 10m by 2m.
There is no evidence that anyone had been buried unidentified in Normal Hill Cemetery from an exhumation in the old site. The survey also revealed that some of the oldest markers may indeed have no remains under them, verifying reports that some headstones had been moved without exhuming the remains. Refer to the "Crossroads" section of this report for an analysis on reasons for the story of the mass grave. |
The
result of the systematic radar survey conclusively demonstrates that no mass grave
exists in Division 3 of Normal Hill Cemetery, nor in any other
section of the cemetery.