People have been telling ghost stories since the beginning of time – the Greeks and Romans had ghost stories, and even the Bible mentions one in the story of Samuel and the Witch of Endor.  The oldest documented ghost story in Oklahoma dates back before statehood in 1896.  What’s more, it was printed in the Guthrie Daily Leader, a newspaper!  The story began on April 9, 1896 with an article about a prostitute receiving a hasty pauper’s burial.  A week later another article appeared declaring a haunting:

“The shack on the Santa Fe right of way in which the Cyprian Lula Myers recently died is haunted.  Horrible groans issue from the shack every night and passerby assert that weird and ghastly incantations take place within the building which was vacated shortly after the unfortunate girl’s death.  Last night a well-known sport called at the house and tried the front door.  It failed to give way.  He tried the back door with the same result, and returning to the front door it suddenly flew open and a blood-red hand holding a vial appeared in the room.  Much excitement prevails among the neighbors residing in the vicinity of the haunted house.”

News stories of this nature continue over the next several days until finally, the body is exhumed to make sure it was not face down or had been buried alive according to some of the rumors that began to float around the community.  There was no more mention of ghosts by the Santa Fe right of way after that April.

Nowadays, newspapers would not declare hauntings as truthful news.  With the progression of technology and science people have become more skeptical of such things.  Non-believers will maintain that the existence of ghosts cannot be proven; believers maintain the non-existence of ghosts has not been proven, either.  However, there are some things that are simply unexplainable, even by science.

So whether you are a believer in things that go bump in the night or not, you have to admit a good old ghost story is always fun.  Some are made up as cautionary tales, some are just for fun, and some are eye witness accounts.  I have been fascinated with ghost stories and tales of the supernatural since I was a small child, but as an adult, my interest turned to the history behind these stories.  It made sense to me that a place might only be haunted if there were sufficient history related to the location to make it so.  If there is a location with reported ghostly activity and no reason for it, then it becomes more an urban legend than a haunting, but if you have several unrelated people telling the same stories over a number of years, well, there might be something to it.

In the early 1970’s my mother and I lived in a house on Cherokee Street in Enid, Oklahoma with our St. Bernard, Buffy.

My mother said strange things would happen at this house on a regular basis such as the cupboard doors and drawers would open and close and the lights would go on and off randomly.  Things would be moved.  She had a ceramic Trojan horse that sat on top of the TV but sometimes she would come home to find it sitting on the mantle across the room from the TV.  The recliner would sometimes be turned facing the corner.

She remembered when she moved in that the windows were all covered in tinfoil and there had been some old bits and pieces of photography equipment laying around.  She always had a creepy feeling that some bad things may have happened there.

One night she was asleep on her bed and she was awakened to find herself half way off of the bed as if she had been dragged.  All the lights were on, the shades were up, the cupboard doors and drawers were all hanging open and Buffy was trembling and whimpering underneath the dining room table.  My mother was terrified and had a very bad feeling as if something evil was lurking there.  She took me out of my crib and immediately left the house.  She proceeded to move us out the next day.

About 20 years later she was working at a local agency when a man came in and sat down at her desk.  She was taking his information and helping him fill out his papers and she noticed that his address was that same house on Cherokee Street.

“I used to live in that house,” she told the man at her desk.

“Really?”  He hesitated.  “Did you ever have anything… weird… happen there?”

They exchanged stories about the house and she found that he had been having the same strange things going on there 20 years later.

I thought this was a great example of a haunted house since two completely unrelated people had things happen there, so I frequently relayed it to friends during ghost story sessions.  One evening I was telling the story to my friend that worked at a local pharmacy and when I mentioned the address, he became white as a ghost himself and started pacing around the room, muttering frantically.  I asked him what was wrong with him.

He said to me, “We used to deliver medicine to a lady that lived there and we always thought she was crazy because she was always going on about how the devil lived in her house!”

Three people, completely unrelated, several years apart – same stories.  No one knows the reason behind the activity there, but it is indisputable that it’s there.

The oldest bar in town, open since 1948, is the Frisco Bar.  It was originally down the street from its current location but that building is no longer there.  The current building was a machine shop downstairs with a brothel upstairs.  The Frisco is famous for its ice cold beer, but there are chilly spirits of another kind there, too.

A massive collection of beer bottles and cans lines the upper walls of the bar.  One evening, the owner was standing behind the bar visiting with one of the customers when one beer can came flying several feet away from the shelf and nearly hit the customer at the bar.  Now, keep in mind that these cans and bottles are nestled quite closely together on these shelves in tiers, but not one of them was disturbed by this one that seemingly propelled itself off the shelf.  A picture has also fallen off the wall and to the floor, and again, not one can or bottle was disturbed.  The owner and other employees have witnessed the water faucet at the sink behind the bar coming on by itself as well.

They say the Frisco ghost is to blame for the flying objects and random water running.  In the early morning hours one day the owner and another man were in the bar.  The owner had just returned from picking up the newspaper from the front sidewalk when his friend asked, “Didn’t you lock that back door?”  The owner assured him he had.

The man told him he had heard it open and said, “Someone just walked up that ramp to the men’s room.”

The pwner wasn’t too worried about it.  “That just the ghost,” he told him.  He reported that people often hear the back door open and when they look to see who’s coming, they witness a black figure walking up the ramp toward the men’s room.  The owner and some of the others are used to the ghost by now while some won’t readily admit to it, but will certainly clean up as quickly as they can when they’re there alone.

Another historic building in Enid is the Surety Abstract Building.  Most of my generation remember it as Lambert’s, a high end dress shop, but before it was Lambert’s, it was a department store called Herzberg’s.

The owner of Surety Abstract jokingly made a comment to a long time Enid attorney that they thought the building might be haunted.  They had witnessed several strange occurrences and were unable to explain them any other way.  The attorney thought for a moment and stated he didn’t really know why it would be haunted.  They finished their business and he returned to his office only to return a short time later with an old newspaper article and declared, “You know, it just might be haunted.”

The 1956 newspaper article relayed the story of a woman that worked in the Herzberg Department Store.  Her estranged ex-husband came into the store one afternoon as she worked demanding she give him $70 for a dentist visit.  She refused and he gunned her down and turned the gun on himself, right there in the store.  The owner had not been aware of this story until she saw the article.

The employees at Surety have seen stacks of things knocked off the counter, heard noises, seen people walk by and when they look, there’s no one there.

I interviewed the children of the previous owner of the building.  They state as children they found every possible nook and cranny of the old building to play hide and seek in and never had any ghostly encounters, but got spooked by the mannequins more than once!

One of the sons is of the opinion it could be the jolly spirit of their dad who is by far the most interesting character to have ever possessed the building.

“This is the large building to the south that Lambert’s occupied in its last years of existence where Dad held an auction one week prior to his passing to ‘get all his affairs in order.’  This was not the building with the mannequins.  The air conditioner and the elevator always had a squeak, which could explain the noises heard from the first floor.  The ‘haunting’ that could be going on could be all the elder ladies hitting on the handsome gentleman in the better place that they all now share.”

Oddly enough, another obscure piece of Enid’s bizarre history rests right outside the Surety Abstract Building.  In the one hundred years of Enid’s history, only three police officers have ever died in the line of duty.  The first took place June 26, 1895 when Enid City Marshal, E.C. Williams, was shot while attempting to break up a fight between the owner of the newspaper and the local Land Office man.  Nearly eleven years later, Marshal Thomas Radford was murdered by a man that was angry with him for closing his rooming house.  The third officer to lose his life was Officer Cal Palmer in 1936 while attempting to arrest a would-be robber.  It’s not all that unusual for police officers to be killed in the line of duty and luckily Enid has only lost three, but the twist to this story is that they all three died on the same corner several years apart – the corner of Grand and Broadway. The corner has since become a bit of a superstition amongst the Enid Police Department and it might be wise for you, too, to take a little extra care traveling that route.

This is just a glimpse into my hometown’s haunted history.  Whether you’re interested in ghost stories or not, most town’s have a lot of interesting history and the stories make learning about it entertaining.  Take some time to learn your community’s haunted history – I bet you’ll be surprised at how many stories you find.

When it comes to the paranormal, there are several types of beliefs.  There are those that believe every mote of dust, drop of moisture, and trick of light that cause those pesky orbs are indeed signs of the afterlife even though science has proven otherwise.  How many orbs did you see before digital cameras?  There are those that believe everything paranormal has to do with religion – that every supernatural being is an angel or demon sent to do God or Satan’s bidding.  There are people that refuse to believe anything paranormal could possibly happen at all.  Then there are people like me and my contemporaries that believe there are things that are unexplainable yet have the discernment to use some very basic common sense.  We got the memo about orbs when somehow so many others missed it.  We understand how a basic radio works and don’t accept the fact that the dead talk through AM radios that only one guy and his selected friends a/k/a “Spirit Communicators” can translate while charging you enormous amounts of money to do so; we also understand that sometimes there are more voices on our tapes than there were people present but we have the wherewithal to admit we don’t know how it happens.

A lot of people believe in the paranormal because they have had an experience they cannot explain.  People that refuse to believe in it have likely never had that same kind of experience and are often not highly spiritual people.  They are science minded and thus refuse to accept that ghosts may exist because science hasn’t proven the existence of the afterlife.  They fail to accept there could very well be gray areas or even areas science hasn’t discovered yet.

The group I am affiliated with is known as trouble makers and mean girls that don’t respect other peoples’ opinions.  We’ve gotten this reputation for a very silly reason – because we ask people to be accountable for what they put in front of the world.  Being Pagan, this is simply a way of life for me and it frustrates me that more people don’t “get it.”  Being responsible for your actions is a large part of the Pagan lifestyle yet it seems to go right out the window when it comes to paranormal investigating and/or beliefs.  People seem to think just because THEY believe it’s so, it is – whether science proves them wrong or not.  Just because someone believes something doesn’t make it so – not when there is science proving it!  I am not talking about the simple question of whether ghosts exist or not – I am talking about things such as orbs that are proven to be caused by using your flash incorrectly or the fact that you really captured highway noises and not voices from the grave on your tapes.  These are the kinds of things that CAN be proven and if someone really wants to be taken seriously as an investigator, they need to be willing to accept that every little thing is not paranormal and not put crazy things on the world wide web claiming you’ve captured a ghost at the gas station when you’ve really captured a moth on a security camera.

According to the definition on Wikipedia, critical thinking “employs not only logic but broad intellectual criteria such as clarity, credibility, accuracy, precision, relevance, depth, breadth, significance and fairness.”

If paranormal investigating is something you are truly interested in, employ a good dose of common sense, read the skeptics as well as the believers and glean from them both.  Use basic critical thinking skills.  You will be much more credible and you will be able to actually intelligently discuss your position.

Right now we may be known as radical and mean, but hopefully one day we’ll be known as those people that made some sense in this crazy world of paranormal research.  It seems to me the founding fathers were once thought to be a bit radical and crazy, too…

Three years ago we deemed June as National Paranormal Clean Up month.  We go to several abandoned and historic places every year and in order to give back to our communities that offer us these jewels, we give back by choosing a location to clean up.  It can be something as simple as volunteering at your local museum or adopting an old cemetery to clean up.  Our group has a local cemetery where we pick up trash and this year we are helping to clean out and renovate an old theater with a haunted history.  Choose a location in your area and participate in Paranormal Clean Up month and give back a little bit.

Works Cited:

Wikipedia. (2009). Critical Thinking. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critical_thinking

Imagine yourself as a child.  Your mother has asked you to fetch something from the cellar.  You don’t like the cellar.  Your mother thinks it’s nonsense and your brother will make fun of you (even though you know he hates it, too!) so you grudgingly head that way.  You pick up the flashlight and turn the knob to the door that opens into the musty darkness.  The cool air greets you but you’d rather suffer the heat than go down there.  Your weak flashlight beam finds the wooden steps and you begin the long descent into the black, praying something doesn’t reach between the open steps and grab you by the ankles, dragging you into the cellar and feasting on your flesh.  You hurry down the rickety steps as quickly as you safely can, fetch the jar of green beans and take the steps two at a time until you reach the top where you slam the door, leaning against it, thankful you made it out alive, your heart beating wildly…

Or perhaps you’re lying in your bed.  The moonlight shines through the window just enough for your desk and toys to be nothing more than dark shapes.  You notice your closet door is open.  It’s just a teeny bit, but still… That china doll you hate but feel obligated to keep because it was a gift from your Great Aunt Ethel is in there.  You know once you start to drift off to sleep it will come to life and attack you.  You just know it.  But now you’re too scared to get up and close the door because everyone knows you can’t put your feet down after dark – who knows what’s under the bed?  So you lie there, too scared to get up and too scared to go to sleep.  Finally, you get up the nerve so you bound as far from the bed as possible, run to the closet, slam it shut, and jump back onto the bed, keeping a safe distance from anything that might be able to reach you from underneath it, your heart beating wildly…

I recently came across the photographic works of Joshua Hoffine.  He sets up his shoots just like a movie set complete with makeup, costumes, and realistic scenery and props.  The children in the photos are his and while several people have questioned that particular judgment, the kids love doing it.  They realize it’s all pretend.  However, the emotions these photos elicit are quite real.  He covers it all from the monster under the bed to the thing under the cellar stairs.

His pictures made me think about fear and what scares people.  What scared you as a kid?  Something under the bed?  A long, dark hallway?  Being abandoned?  Spiders?  Clowns?  The ever so slightly opened closet at night?  The dark in general?  Ghosties?

I asked this question to several people and the responses were colorful and varied.  The fears mentioned most often were under the bed, the closet door being open, clowns, spiders, and intruders.  There were also completely random ones like moths, birds, needles, aliens, and bridges.  A lot of people are scared of dolls or ventriloquist dummies, too.  In truth, most of us are still a little scared of these things even as adults.  We probably don’t realize it, but when we think back to times gone by we still shudder at the thought of many of these things and can easily recall the terror they caused us as kids.

As a paranormal investigator, I spend a lot of time in what would be considered scary places.  Most of them are dark with spiders, snakes, birds, bats, and other creepy crawlies.  Most of them are the scenes of some type of tragedy, deep sorrow, or death, with the likelihood of ghosts.  We spend the night in places most people wouldn’t venture into in the daylight.  So what causes some people to get an adrenaline rush from being scared and others to quake in their boots?  Some people would just as soon never see a scary movie, never had any fears growing up, and would never, ever go on a paranormal investigation to a supposedly haunted place yet some people yearn to be terrified.  Carolyn Palmer, a psychology professor at Vassar College, said that some situations tie into our need to master threatening situations because anytime we master something, we get a thrill from that sense of control and the closer we get to not being in control, the greater the thrill.1

Now, most paranormal investigators will tell you they investigate to find the “truth” or to prove that ghosts exist.  If you ask just about any investigator what got them interested in investigating the paranormal, most of them will tell you it’s because of an experience they had and they want to know “why.”  This is very noble, but in reality, I believe a lot of us do it for the sheer thrill of being in a spooky situation.  Some people are simply fascinated with scary things and the thrill we get from experiencing them.  Would I love to prove the existence of ghosts?  Certainly.  But until then, I will just enjoy hanging out with the spiders in the dark spooky hospitals and prisons.  So there you have it – the reason I like to investigate the paranormal is simply because I love being scared.  I’m a sucker for spooky places and scary movies.  I love the thrill of a good spook house.  I scream and clap my hands with delight at the same time.  Crazy?  Maybe a little.  Stephen King explains the need to be scared as a sane way of expressing the insanity we all have – he likens it to feeding the inner “gators” – as long as we keep them fed, they don’t come to the surface.

I related to several of the same fears everyone else listed.  One that a couple of people talked about that was also depicted in one of Hoffine’s pictures was nuclear war, or the end of the world.  When I was young, the movie “The Day After” came out and nuclear war was a popular subject.  I was terrified of dying that way and I was terrified of what it would be like if I didn’t die.  The above scene with the closet door and china doll – not made up!  I had a doll that scared me to death, but I couldn’t get rid of it.  I think part of me was scared it would come back.  I would lie there and fret until I finally got the nerve to close the closet door.  Take a look at Hoffine’s pictures and let me know what scared you – or still does.  Granted, as we grow up our real fears change a bit – things like not being able to pay the bills or losing a child, but I think you will be surprised when you think about it that some of those childhood fears are still lurking there, just under the bed…

The paranormal has become quite a hot topic over the past few years and a lot of that is because of television.  There are mixed feelings about the effect of television on the paranormal field.  On one hand, it has made it much more mainstream and acceptable.  People are much more open to talking about their ghostly encounters these days and tourism is booming when it comes to locations with haunted history.

On the other hand, it has everyone thinking they can run out and buy some gear and hunt ghosts.  What happens then is that people become reckless, often times scaring the bejesus out of innocent property owners by telling them they have a house full of demons when in truth they have crappy plumbing.  People see all these “as seen on TV” gizmos and think they have all the answers to the afterlife.

If you watch much paranormal television, you will see several different gadgets, thingamajiggys, and do-dads used to “detect ghosts.”  Some of the gadgets actually print “The Ghost Meter” on them.  There’s the EMF Meter, the KII Meter, the Tri-Field Meter, the digital voice recorder, the Ovilus, the thermal imaging camera and so on and so on…

The truth of the matter is none of these electronic goodies detect ghosts.  These gadgets detect changes in the atmosphere.  It is theorized that when a ghost is present, there are changes in the atmosphere; however, the existence of ghosts has yet to be proven, so this is all really conjecture and somewhat educated – and more often than not, uneducated – guess work.

People that want to start their own paranormal investigation teams often say they will do it once they can afford all the equipment.  I’m here to tell you, the only equipment you need is a camera, digital or 35 mm, a video recorder, a tape recorder, a flashlight, a notebook, and the most important and least expensive piece – good old common sense.

A lot of paranormal enthusiasts get irritated at groups that always seem to be “debunking” hauntings.  It’s just not nearly as fun as having a bona fide haunted house.  Debunking is not a negative thing.  It’s the responsible thing to do.  For example, if you are examining a haunting and the occupant is complaining of sleeplessness or “seeing things” and you notice their bedroom is full of electronics such as televisions, DVD players, CD players, alarm clocks, lamps, etc., it could very simply be that they have too many electronics in their bedroom and not ghosts at all.  High levels of EMF have been found to cause hallucinations among other physical ailments.  Of course, if you go into that room with your Ghost Meter, it’s going to go crazy.  The occupant’s issues will likely cease upon removing all the EMF from the area where they sleep.

My partner had a similar case where the occupants were complaining of the baby not being able to sleep and other odd things taking place around their house.  She noticed that all of the switch plates were metal.  She had them rearrange the baby’s room and told them they needed to contact an electrician.  It turned out their house was not grounded and there were high levels of EMF being emitted into the rooms.  Once the electrical issues were fixed, there were no more “ghosts.”  Now, yes, I did say a camera was an item you want to have in your ghost hunting arsenal.  But you need to know how to use it properly.  There are a lot of paranormal folks that will swear those orbs they get in their photos are ghosts.  Well, they obviously didn’t get the memo.  Science has proven most orbs captured on digital cameras are caused by dust, reflections, bugs, moisture, smoke, etc.  If you don’t believe me, run your finger over a door ledge and snap a picture – you will get a ton or orbs.  Coincidentally, there’s an awful lot of dust being stirred up in some of the abandoned locations and cemeteries.  It’s also interesting to point out that before digital cameras came along there weren’t nearly as many orb pictures as there are these days.  I am not an expert photographer by any means, but when one person wrote to Canon to inquire about orbs, this is what they were told:

“We have checked your camera and are happy that the camera meets all design specifications.  The problem you have been experiencing is due to a phenomenon not associated with the camera.

When a picture is taken and reviewed afterwards, circular spots may be noticed on the picture. The problem does not occur with every picture.  Additionally, the spots are randomly positioned throughout the picture.  Highest concentration is in areas closest to the flash unit when the picture was made.

The cause of the problem is common to a lot of digital cameras with small CCDs, not just the Canon digital cameras.  Such digital cameras have a greater depth of field compared to 35mm cameras, due to their smaller focal distance.  This occurs in even higher degree when the camera is set to wide angle.

Because of the above, small dust particles, droplets of water, etc., drifting in the air close to the camera and not within depth of field for normal 35mm cameras, are within depth of field for digital cameras.  Under normal circumstances this is not too big a problem, as these are very small.

When flash is used, its light illuminates these dust particles or water droplets, and these therefore show up and are extremely obvious on pictures taken.  The problem is worsened, because the flash unit is positioned close to the lens barrel.

Due to the setup and operation of digital cameras using small CCDs (charge coupled device), there is nothing that can be done about this phenomenon.  You can take some measures though, to prevent this problem from occurring as much as is possible.

Switch off flash in environments where there are likely to be small dust particles or water droplets in the air.  To compensate for this lack of flash, you can increase the ISO value on your digital camera if this feature is available on your camera.

Use an external slave flash unit further away from the camera and partially cover the camera’s flash.  These units are not available from Canon, but there are third party companies producing such units.  Make sure a slave flash unit is chosen which can also be set to synchronize with the second flash as used by Powershot cameras.  With Powershot cameras, the first flash is used to measure, the second is the actual flash.”

(Canon customer correspondence)

This is not to say that nothing supernatural ever gets captured on a digital camera.  This is also not to say that orbs are never anomalous.  There are strange things sometimes captured on cameras, but the sensible thing to do is to have them analyzed and not just assume it’s ghostly.

One of the new toys in the paranormal world is a gizmo called the Ovilus.  It’s also referred to as digital dowsing.  It’s a device that creates phonetic speech from the environment.  It is pre-programmed with a set of 512 words that sometimes coincidentally make sense in certain places.  Each word is assigned a number and when the EMF changes, the words are spoken.  It’s very random.  Since EMF is not ghosts, I think it’s pretty safe to say the words generated from this device aren’t coming from ghosts either.  Is it interesting and entertaining?  Sure.  Is it ghosts talking to you?  Not likely.

I am pointing these things out because it’s all too easy to get caught up in all the hype of technology and throw common sense out the window.  People think they’re being “scientific” with these gadgets but without an incredibly good working knowledge of the technology behind them; they are in reality being reckless and ignorant.

All of these items can enhance an investigation if the operators are educated about them and understand the margin for error and realize that they are not in fact detecting ghosts with them.  It’s not necessary to break the bank getting these things if you’re seriously looking into investigating.  I contend that a good amount of common sense and a library card are the best pieces of “equipment” you can have – and they’re both free.

There are simply too many factors that come into play when you get gadgets involved.  Unless you are a photographer by trade, you likely don’t know all the intricacies of your camera and all the ins and outs of photography.  You can’t truly 100% say that weird blob is anomalous.  You can say you “think” it’s anomalous, but really, in the grand scheme of things, do you honestly “think” anyone gives a rat’s ass what you “think”?  Not really.  They have you there because they want to know what you know, not what you “think.”

Now that I’ve been doing this for a few years, I’ve learned a lot and I’ve changed my focus quite a bit.  I have changed my focus to the history behind the hauntings rather than the science of the hauntings.  Why is history so important to an investigation?  Because no matter what kind of temperature readings, EMF spikes, or moon phases you have in your favor, you ain’t got jack without the history.  The history is the basis of anything and everything going on, if in fact, there really is something going on.  If you have exhausted every scientific experiment you can think of and checked all the plumbing and there simply is nothing coming up but these people are still giving you accounts of things that have happened to them, then you owe it to them to find out why.  That’s why they called you.

If you can find out the history of a location, you will likely find out why it’s haunted.  If you can’t find out exactly why, you may at least be able to verify that it is.

My mother lived in a house in Enid, Oklahoma when I was a baby and things happened to her all the time.  She would come home and the recliner would be turned facing the wall.  Knick-knacks would be moved from where she put them, the lights would come on, the cabinet doors would open – you know, classic haunted house stuff.  One night she was awakened to find herself half way off of her bed, as if she had been dragged off of it.  All the lights in the house were on and all the cabinet doors and drawers were open.  Buffy, our fearless St. Bernard, was cowering under the dining room table whimpering like a baby.  She took me from my crib and got the heck outta Dodge and moved out the next day.

About 20 years later, she was working at the employment office when a gentleman came to her desk with his paperwork.  As she was going through his papers, she saw the address.  It was the same address as the house I was just telling you about.  She says, “Oh, I used to live in that house about 20 years ago,” and the guy says, “Really… anything weird ever happen to you there?”  So they exchange stories and it turns out this guy is having things happen, too.

Well, I always thought this was a great creepy story so one night I’m relaying it to a few friends.  I say the address and one of my friends starts completely freaking out.  After he settles down he proceeds to tell me, “We always deliver medicine to the old lady that lives there and she is always going on about how the devil lives in her house and we always just thought she was crazy!”

So, you see, there are three stories from three totally unrelated people over the span of several years, of things happening to them in this same house.  Do we know why the house is haunted?  No.  But with three stories like that, I think we can safely say that it is haunted.

This example is why it is so very important to know the history of the location you are investigating.  Corroborating stories are more validation to me than an orb in a picture or a crazy EMF reading any day.

So this brings us to “How do I find out the history?”  Well, that’s not nearly as easy as waltzing through a place with a bunch of gear that squawks and beeps and flashes, but in the end will be much more impressive, not to mention fulfilling for you as an investigator.  People are impressed with intelligence and if you can show that you have done your homework, you will likely gain more credibility for that than for having more crap on your tool belt than someone else.

If you are a credible investigator at all, you will have a very lengthy and in depth questionnaire you’ll use to interview your clients with.  Once you have talked with them ad nauseam and you have determined that their troubles are not the cat knocking things over, the pipes rumbling, or the medication they’re taking, then you can begin your quest.

Remember when you were a kid and you thought it would be cool to be like Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys or even Sherlock Holmes?  Well, here’s your chance because being a Paranormal Investigator is much like being a private investigator.  You have to be very observant of everything in the location and even the actions of the owners.  You will have to be able to purvey the scene, interview witnesses, dig for clues, and follow those clues until you find the answer, just like a detective.  I would say luckily, you don’t have to have a PI license to do this, but you know, sometimes I think you should because that would cut down on a lot of idiots out there yelling “Ghost” every time they get an orb, but I digress…

The first thing you need to do on your hunt to uncover the past is take good notes.  Look for anything that denotes a particular era – pictures, certificates, scrapbooks, photo albums, etc.  See if they have any pictures of the location as it looked originally.  Sometimes buildings and homes change considerably over the years and these changes might prove to be pertinent to your investigation on down the road.  Ask the owner what history they know, if any.  Ask them if they have the abstract of the location.  The abstract will have all the deeds and mortgages and documents pertaining to the property in it and you can find out a lot from an abstract, such as any changes or additions to the property over the years and people involved in buying or selling it.

Ask the occupants what they know about their neighbors.  Find out if any of them have been there for a while.  They may not know much about the neighbors and the neighbors might not seem to know a lot either, but Mrs. Cravitz across the street might be able to recall some minute thing that may not seem to matter, but might be a big clue later on.  Take good notes!  Note anything you find out from the neighbors!

Now, being in the legal field for the last several years, I have learned how to find a lot of things out that people don’t really know about or think about.  There are several online search engines that you can subscribe to and would probably be a wise investment if you plan to do a lot of research.  There’s also a social security death index online that can be helpful.  But for the real nitty gritty research, you’re going to have to get off your butt and actually do some legwork.

Your local courthouse can be a plethora of information.  If you can’t get your hands on the abstract, go to the deeds office and look up the address and you can find every deed that has ever been done on that property.  Deeds reflect who owns the land and you should be able to tell from the different deeds whether improvements such as houses, etc. have been made on the land.  Also note that the deed will just tell you who owned or owns a piece of property – it won’t tell you if someone else rented it.  But you can find that out, too.  You can also find out who pays the taxes on the property by contacting the Assessor’s office.  This information should all be public record.  You can find out a lot about a piece of property from the Assessor’s office and I have never had an experience where they weren’t happy to answer any of my questions.  All of this is free – the only thing that will cost you is copies.  Everything that is in the abstract should be available at the deeds office; it just won’t be all in one handy book like an abstract.

Another thing you might ask for while at the deeds office is to look at the plat of the location.  A plat is a plan, map or chart of a city, town or section, usually on land that has been subdivided, indicating boundaries and borders of individual properties. Each lot is identified by number and letter. Lot dimensions are noted. It may also include features such as building locations, water pipes, sewer lines, vegetation, topography, etc.  This can show you what was originally in that location and the layout of the property surrounding it.  You might also be able to check with the local code or zoning office and see if they have any permits for building improvements or renovations on the property you are investigating – these might have names on them you need or even might tell you about a stairwell or attic that’s been walled up.

To find out who has actually lived in the house you can access the city’s City Directory.  Most cities have these and they are normally available at the library or the city offices.  Some people call them a Criss-Cross directory also because you can look things up by address, name, or phone number and they’re all cross-referenced.  These are great tools in locating people, past or present.  They come out once a year and you should be able to get a hold of them fairly easily.

The city utility office is another place you can check for past residents.  They are usually very accommodating if you tell them you are doing historical research on the house.  I don’t think I’ve ever been told they couldn’t give me that information.

Once you have a good list of names of previous residents, then you can start trying to contact them.  I have found that a letter is much less scary for someone to receive than a phone call out of the blue, by a complete stranger, asking them about ghosts.  A letter will give them time to process what you are actually saying to them and to do some research on you to determine whether you’re sincere and credible, or a total loon.  If they decide you’re a loon, you’re pretty much out of luck and they will probably throw away your letter or save it and show it to their friends saying, “Look what I got in the mail from this loon!” and you’ll never hear a word from them.  Or they might be afraid of appearing like the loon and not say anything at all.  Or you could get really lucky and they will call you with their stories.

If you don’t hear anything from the previous residents, don’t get discouraged.  Go to the graveyard.  Not literally, but start digging through the obituaries.  Most libraries have a database of some kind of all the obituaries. You can probably access them on microfilm.  Genealogy groups are also a good resource and most communities have them and they are always willing to help people, given you don’t blurt out what you’re doing, or they may think you’re loony.  Cemetery associations also should have records of every person buried in the cemeteries and they may be another place to check with.

If someone died of unnatural causes, there will likely be a newspaper article on it and if you search the dates surrounding the death, you might come up with a story or two about the occurrence.

If the person died from a crime, there will be a police report, which you should be able to obtain relatively easily from your local police department.  Now with everything being available online, many court districts have court documents available online.  You would need to find out their location on the net and then you can search by name to see if anyone has any documents filed in the court system.  If you have the name of a murderer, you can probably get copies of things like a probable cause affidavit, which basically outlines the crime committed and you will get a lot of details from that.  We were working on a home where a heinous murder took place and we were able to obtain a copy of the probable cause affidavit and the information sheet the state filed and we culled several details from those basic documents.  We found out where the bodies were discovered, who all the witnesses were, all kinds of things that related directly to the haunting.  We were also able to go online to the Department of Corrections and look up the killer – which doesn’t necessarily pertain to the haunting directly, but it was interesting and a name might be relevant to the haunting in the long run.

It would also probably behoove you to become chummy with the local police department.  With this particular house I mentioned, we were able to get a walk through with the detective that worked the scene when it happened.  He was able to give us a lot of background and the facts of the case, which was pretty exciting because we had all grown up hearing about this murder and over the years the stories grow and change and you never know the truth, so it was cool that he was able to give us the true story and details that we wouldn’t have otherwise known.  Of course, if the crime was a long time ago, this might not be something that’s possible, but if it is, take advantage of it.

Some counties and towns have their own history books.  My county has a huge two volume set that was put together by the local historical society in the 80’s and it was done by gathering stories and histories from families throughout the county.  I use these in my research of local ghost towns and they are one of my most prized and priceless resources, so check with your local historical society or museum and see if they have such a creature, because if they do, you will feel like you have totally hit the jackpot once you start going through it and realizing how much information is in those kinds of books.

If, after you have exhausted all these ideas, you just can’t get one thing to make sense, then I would say to go ahead and document everything the client is telling you, conduct your technical investigation, and provide them with a copy of the report.  Have them keep a journal of any further occurrences.  Perhaps by documenting everything well, your information may be able to help the next person that lives there.  Someone may remember something later on that will make sense to someone and they may call you back.  Check back with them periodically to keep track of whatever’s happening there.

As I mentioned earlier, being armed with knowledge is much more impressive than being armed with a bunch of gadgets and you should be well armed now that you know how to conduct a proper historical investigation.  It may sound like a lot of work, but you’ll be glad in the long run that you did it and your clients will have a lot more respect for you knowing you worked hard to truly research their problem.  I’ve met people that have written books and books on the history of haunted places and have made a great living based on their knowledge of history of haunted places, but I have yet to meet one successful author or investigator that’s successful because he had the biggest tool belt and the most expensive meters.