2. Paranormal News | Focus on ghosts
Paranormal probers use a lot of normal gear to hunt the abnormal
MARYVILLE - Sometime after midnight, Leslie King begins speaking into the dark in hopes someone will answer.
The Southeastern Paranormal Research Society investigator sits in the back of a downtown Maryville store among boxes of used record albums and rows of books. As she speaks quietly and calmly into the early morning air, fellow paranormal investigator Ken Smith occasionally snaps flash photos.
The two are looking for ghosts, for evidence that something paranormal coexists with humans in this former auto parts store.
"If there's anyone else here - if you want to tell us anything or have messages for anyone else - now's the prime opportunity to do this," King says. "Tell us why you are here. … Make a sound … ."
But whoever - or whatever - has been opening doors and tugging curtains isn't talking back. On this day, the tiny silver recorder doesn't pick up any "electronic voice phenomena," words or sounds that paranormal researchers believe spirits make. Smith's photos capture no unearthly images or mist.
Maybe ghost hunting should be called ghost waiting.
"I don't know how many times we've been somewhere six to eight hours and nothing happens," says Jason La Follette, a Blount County resident and founder of Southeastern Paranormal Research Society, also called SEPRS. "Ninety-nine percent is waiting for something to happen. It's that 1 percent of the time that makes it all worthwhile."
On this October night, five SEPRS members spend about five hours in the structure shared by Southland Books, Detour Coffee and Southern Studios Stained Glass. They're here because the businesses' three owners report disturbing, but not frightening, sounds and occurrences.
Curtains dividing spaces in the large, planked-floor building move; chimes seemingly tinkle without wind. Interior doors open and close, and footstep sounds are heard in the early morning or evening when the businesses are closed and the entrance locked.
Southland Books owner Lisa Misosky calls her experiences having "extra company you don't really ask for."
"You definitely have those experiences, and on one hand, you think, 'Someone's in the building with me,' and when you realize it's just you, there's a whole different feeling of something is definitely not right about this," says Misosky.
After the businesses closed on this recent Saturday night, SEPRS members looked for evidence and answers. They set up four infrared cameras and microphones on stands around tall bookcases. They unpacked gear - a computer and sound equipment, meters and cameras and thermometers - that they use to seek voices or images from the spirit world. The group owns about a dozen meters that measure changes in electromagnetic fields, which members say is another sign of a possible paranormal presence.
But on this night, meters and microphones find nothing. A cold spot - which investigators say could indicate a spirit using up energy - does drift through the rear of the store between 1:30 and 2 a.m. The chill seems to move and measures 3 degrees cooler than surrounding air.
But for most of this vigil, group members sit and wait, walk and watch. Patience is their virtue; strong coffee, their friend. Around 2 a.m. they begin to pack up the equipment. A later study of video, photos and recordings also finds no evidence of the paranormal.
Begun in October 2004, SEPRS performs two to three investigations a month. Members are volunteers who explore locations within a two-hour radius of Knoxville; they sometimes return to a place to work on a case. Evidence of the paranormal shows up less than 10 percent of the time, La Follette says.
"Ghosts don't come and act on cue," says investigator Rick Thomas, who's also an emergency medical services worker.
SEPRS members live from Maryville to Madisonville; most work day jobs. Many of the 10 to 15 regular members also belong to the Appalachian Fortean Society. The society holds meetings at Southland Books, not to hunt for ghosts but to discuss everything from UFOs to conspiracy theories.
SEPRS doesn't charge for investigations but does accept donations. Its work is more about service than science, says La Follette. Instead of primarily looking for scientific proof of the paranormal, he says, SEPRS members mainly hope to help people who call them.
"We don't discount anyone's story," he says. "Most people, once they know there's nothing to be afraid of, are comfortable living with it."
It's not all meters and cameras. Clients answer a detailed 13-page questionnaire that asks not only about eerie events but also about topics ranging from a property's history to its residents' mental and emotional states. Researchers also hunt for any natural causes, such as squirrels in an attic or loose plumbing pipes, that could explain events.
Sometimes what's discovered gets creepy. Investigators at an Etowah location a few months ago saw a full-body shadow - a person's silhouette without an accompanying body.
"You get excited with something like that," La Follette says.
A recording from a Madisonville location contained an electronic voice phenomenon that the group said proclaimed, "We're all dead here."
It's enough to make Thomas, the group's self-proclaimed comedian, deadly serious. "You get that feeling, like someone watching you," he says. "There are things that go on you just can't explain."
Amy McRary may be reached at 865-342-6437.
© 2007, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/oct/28/focus-ghosts/
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