Ghost hunters Steven Wolff and Sara Lessley led University students on an unusual quest through Pioneer Cemetery late Wednesday. During the walk, student Brian Truong took a picture that showed a glowing red orb the hunters determined to be a ghost.
Wolff later attempted to record a conversation with the undead by asking simple questions into a handheld voice recorder in the cemetery. Ghosts often manifest themselves through disembodied voices that appear on digital or analog recordings, he said.
“We have the means to hear you,” Wolff said. “Please, this is your chance.”
He tried for three minutes, but didn’t get a response.
Representatives of both the Trail’s End Paranormal Society and the Pacific Paranormal Research Society were invited to speak as part of the Living Learning Initiative Community Conversations series. Kevin Hatfield, coordinator of the Living Learning Initiative and adjunct instructor of history, said students on the Walton Advisory Board chose six different topics to be discussed by experts in open forums throughout each term. This ghost hunting presentation was the fourth discussion this term.
The scientific community regards paranormal research as pseudo-science, Lessley said, but ghosts do not follow natural laws and therefore cannot be subjected to most laboratory inquiry. Ghosts, she said, are the spirit or essence of a dead body, made of energy. They most often manifest themselves as disembodied voices, glowing orbs or foggy clouds, she said.
Todd and Martina Baker of the Pacific Paranormal Research Society spoke at the meeting in Hawthorne Hall Wednesday. The Bakers, who also teach Ghost Hunting 101 at Lane Community College, explained to 50 students and community members that ghosts are people who have died but are too stubborn to move on.
“Ghosts are some of the most stubborn people you’ve ever met,” Martina Baker said.
Baker went on to explain that ghosts choose to stay in the mortal realm because of sadness or “unfinished business” and are more focused on haunting locations than people.
“Remodeling is the number one cause of paranormal activity,” Baker said.
According to the TEPS presentation, there are several categories of ghost. The most common type is the Residual Ghost, who does not communicate. Another is the Intelligent Ghost, who interacts with humans. Animals and other non-human entities can also become ghosts. Lessley warned that if one were to come in contact with a demon, a being of dark energy, that they should “go to your religious leader of choice.”
When asked what she would say to skeptics, Lessley said “be skeptical, but keep a balanced and open mind. Don’t let that be a brick wall. Keep searching.”