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Ghosts hunting
catches on - 20081103
Paranormal fans just normal
folks
By Alex Shebar
It's midnight as four people stand in a dilapidated
basement, surrounded by darkness.
What little light was provided by their small
flashlights reveals paint peeling from the wall and a lone
cabinet falling apart at its hinges. The floor, if there ever
was one, has disintegrated into dirt and dust.
It is hot, sweaty, hard to breathe.
The group stands with nervous excitement as
a voice calls out. It's the leader of the group, a powerful,
deep female voice demanding attention.
She asks a question.
"Is anyone down here?"
She waits. No response.
"Is anyone trapped down here?"
Again, no response. She pauses longer before
asking her next question, the first hint of nervousness creeping
through.
"Were you murdered?"
This is only the beginning of a long night
of hunting ghosts at a house in New Richmond.
The four are one-third of a closely knit group
of specialists. They include engineers, researchers, writers,
and, until recently, even an ordained priest. They're using
sound, tested methods to prove the seemingly impossible -
that the paranormal is normal, real.
A ghost hunt usually takes six to eight hours,
and that doesn't include weeks of prior research and then
review of everything collected. It can be dull, tedious work
that any average person would find boring, awful.
It's what they love to do.
The Southern Ohio Apparition Researchers,
or SOAR, does exactly what its name suggests. Members are
OK being called "ghost hunters," but they find it
much too simple a term.
"We want to help people and we want to
increase paranormal awareness in the community," said
Melinda Smith, of Batavia, founder and group leader. "We
hope that we are going to capture something, that we are going
to see something. To us, that's exciting."
The group has hunted for the unexplained across
Ohio and Kentucky. Working in the night, they've explored
houses, cemeteries, prisons, restaurants and even a day-care
center.
The older the building, the greater the chance
of a haunted presence, but it doesn't have to be ancient to
have a ghost, Smith said.
The group has first hand experiences with
the paranormal. On its Web site, a viewer can search pages
of voice recordings that don't belong to anyone on the investigation.
These are called Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVPs. SOAR
members have heard ghosts whisper messages as menacing as
"I killed somebody and I can't fall asleep," or
as mysterious as, "Scared ... OK."
The concept of ghost hunting has become much
more familiar to the average person. The team agrees that
the popularity of the Sci Fi Channel's "Ghost Hunters"
and the Travel Channel's "Most Haunted" has begun
to move paranormal investigating away from insanity to a thought-provoking
pseudo-science.
science.
The average person may not believe, but they
don't dismiss it as easily anymore, said Lora Lewis, SOAR's
case manager.
"It seems like more and more every year
we have all noticed people who seem to believe, and it's ones
you would never have guessed," she said.
Recently, it seems that believers turn into
hunters, at least in Ohio.
In 1999, there were four paranormal investigator
teams in the state. Now there are 125, said James Willis,
founder and director of Ghost of Ohio and co-author of the
book "Weird Ohio," which profiles eccentricities
that the state has to offer.
The popularity of paranormal investigating
has had a twofold effect, Willis said.
On one hand, the average person might feel
more comfortable talking about their experiences. On the other,
the hot trend of searching for ghosts often makes anyone feel
like they can do it - and they end up doing more damage than
good.
"Now there are so many groups out there
that are in it for excitement. They are running around screaming
that they are possessed by ghosts or that dust particles are
spirit orbs," he said. "Then, the media singles
out these strange groups and says, 'You're all like that.'
"
SOAR knows of these eccentric groups, but
dismisses them. Their members approach everything with a keen
scientific view, admitting that they will most likely find
nothing on their hunts.
When they do find something, 95 percent of
it can be explained scientifically.
"People need to realize, we're going
to be brutally honest. If we feel these things can be explained,
we're going to tell you," Lewis said. "It may be
exciting to have a shared experience in the paranormal, but
were not going to make things up just to make it more exciting
for people."
SOAR's paranormal investigation of a building
begins with a call from a potential client who has something
in his home or business he can't explain.
Their last investigation was of Dr. John Rogers'
home in New Richmond. Rogers' claim to fame was delivering
President Ulysses S. Grant, as well as being a prominent abolitionist.
The building was going through a restoration, and workers
kept hearing unnerving noises or feeling the presence of someone
in the room, watching everything they did.
After the group ruled out possible explanations
such as faulty electrical wiring or old floorboards, it began
the historical research of the property.
Usually, this lasts two to three weeks. SOAR
goes to libraries, historical societies and courthouses -
anything that will let them know exactly what happened in
the building.
"I learned things about my own property
as a result of the research they did," said Bob Lees,
owner of the building. Lees now knows every person who had
owned the house, and more importantly, every person who had
died in it.
The group then conducts the investigation.
Team members go through the house, searching every room and
the basement. They ask questions of spirits - things like
the way they lived and the way they died. They take readings
of temperature and electromagnetic fields; they use cameras
and recorders to get video, photographs and noise. Most of
the time, when SOAR finds anything, it will be through technology,
Smith said, as the paranormal is often on a spectrum higher
than a human can see or hear.
Once the investigation concludes, the group
spends a few weeks reviewing the evidence. It takes a long
time, since they painstakingly go over everything before any
evidence is presented to the client.
Of course, SOAR uses the term client loosely,
since the group is nonprofit. It doesn't take donations or
payment for its services, and all the members are volunteers.
SOAR does what it does for the pure thrill of the hunt.
"We're here to help people and document
the paranormal, that's it," Smith said. "We all
have normal jobs, we're all normal people, and we can't do
this all the time."
SOAR was founded by Smith in 2004. Its presence
in the community is strong, although they rarely advertise.
The average person beginning to research the
local paranormal seems to find SOAR, either through the Internet
or word of mouth, Lewis said.
That's just the way the group likes it.
"We do not want to come across as crackpots.
We're your average Joes, so we let people seek us out,"
she said. "We don't necessarily try to go up to a perfect
stranger and say, 'Hey, do you believe in the paranormal?'
"
The group has no doubts about its uphill battle.
Even if someday ghosts are proven to exist - and SOAR hopes
that happens - there will always be the unexplained around
Ohio. And they will always be trying to find it and explain
it.
"I would love to see a full-bodied apparition
someday. I have never seen one before," Smith said. "Maybe
it will happen, maybe it won't. Either way, we'll keep hunting."
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