I know what you’re thinking and you’re wrong. Believe me, the electronic equipment of which I speak is way more expensive than anything I’d buy at the local adult novelty store…
We’ve been big fans of the show Ghost Hunters for a few years, and have enjoyed taking a look at some other shows that purport themselves to be investigators of the paranormal. Other than the original, which started the trend, we mostly watch and smirk, but sometimes they are legitimate, or serious, or not just wildly amusing and we watch them more than once. Hubby has had some experiences that have caused him to question the thickness of the veil that divides this world and the ones we don’t see, so we have created group that we hope will help us answer some questions, or at the very least investigate some theories, and help some people along the way.
Just like Jason and Grant of TAPS, we enter investigations with a healthy dose of skepticism. We are not out to disprove paranormal activity – we certainly believe that there are unexplained events going on and entities with which we cannot predictably make contact – but we do wish to dig down through the hype and the speculation and the coincidence and find the true and honest mystery that is involved in communication with the plane of existence that those entities reside in. We won’t ridicule or make light of anyone’s fears or concerns, but we aren’t afraid to tell them that the noises they are hearing or weird lights they are seeing are not of a paranormal nature.
Our group, called Paranormal Ozarks, is still being “built”. We have a website, and we have a few members on our board, but we haven’t yet incorporated. Until we do that we aren’t taking on any investigations on our own. We have a few friends in other groups who have invited us to join them on investigations, and have seen and heard some unusual things.
Hubby has more of a “sense” about things than I do. I do have a certain level of intuition just on a daily basis, but hubby is like those folks in the television shows that can feel heaviness in a room and such. I walk into a room and just notice if the ceiling is painted or the furniture is mid-century modern… he notices other stuff.
My favorite experience so far happened on my first investigation. We were with another group at the MacArthur Museum of Military History in Little Rock, and it was the last hour or so of the time we were to be there. A group of us were in the theater – which was not a theater really, just a little round room with a screen where they showed videos to museum guests. (You can see where we were in the picture in the link: the theater was in that tower on the second floor)We had placed a motion sensor in the room just above the theater, and there was no entry or exit to the room except the staircase that connected to the theater. As we were trying to capture electronic voice phenomena (EVP) the motion sensor upstairs went off. We all went quickly up the stairs and checked out the room – finally determining that there wasn’t anyone else there or anything else (bird, mouse, etc…) that would have triggered the sensor.
The room was only about 15 feet in diameter, so it wasn’t a huge room. We decided to spend the rest of our time – 20 minutes or so – trying to catch some EVP’s there instead of going back to the theater. We set up a little experiment in the middle of us as we all sat in a loosely defined circle on the floor. It was a target of sorts, drawn on a piece of paper, that had a few bb’s placed on it. We were asking any entities that might be present to move the bb’s on the paper. Nothing was happening, and time was drawing down to the time we needed to pick up our equipment and head out. Finally, the woman who was asking the questions said something to the effect of “This is your last chance to let us know you’re here…” and immediately following her statement there was a shriek in the room that made my arm hair stand up. We all looked at each other with wide eyes, and I said something brilliant like “WHAT WAS THAT!!!???” We walked around the room, looked outside the windows to see if we saw any cars leaving the parking lot… nothing came to light that might have caused the sound.
When we got back downstairs to where the rest of the investigators were packing up we asked around whether anyone had been up near our location, or if anyone else had heard a scream, or a shrieking sound. No one had. To this day I don’t know what that sound was, and I’m sure it was my first paranormal experience.
So, do you believe in ghosts?
