Some might call them ghost busters. They have the vans and the fancy equiptment, but that is not how Joe Leto would put it.
Leto is the founder and lead investigator for the Des Moines Iowa Extreme paranormal Advanced Research Team, or DIEPART. He orchestrates a team of about a dozen investigators who travel to sites where people have reported paranormal activity. And they do it free of charge.
Leto, who works for a telephone company in the Des Moines area, attended the University of Iowa where he earned a degree in Radio Frequency Engineering. Having knowledge of the advanced equiptment he and his team uses is imperative. Many of his team members grew up in houses they knew to be haunted. He didn?t but has simply always been interested in the paranormal.
?It?s never really been a question of being scared of any of this,? Leto said.
He said it is more a question of being excited, rather than scared.
?But, we?re not really about busting ghosts,? Leto said. ?We are simply trying to validate, or not, claims that people make about their alleged encounters with the paranormal.?
Team members get excited about the possibility of finding activity, but they conduct their research professionally.
?I try not to hear other peoples? ghost stories,? team member Rick Cowman said. ?That way I don?t have expectations in my mind of what I should be hearing or seeing.
Cowman said most of the time the team does not see any activity.
The investigation team typically conducts one investigation per week. They set up their equiptment throughout the house or building and by about 1 a.m. the team turns off the lights and waits. They usually finish up at 4 a.m. and meet at Leto?s house to analyze the data collected.
?We want to approach this from a scientific perspective,? Leto said. ?We want to be more like a fly on the wall instead of like people using a Ouija board.?
Leto said the team is very careful to avoid conjuring anything.
On July15 the team conducted an investigation at a 110-year-old home in Zearing. The occupants have lived there for 30 years and had each encountered what seemed to be spirits on numerous occasions. The family of three wished to remain anonymous.
?The first thing I saw was a couple passing through the hallway between the bedroom and bathroom,? the 37-year-old daughter said. ?That was about a week after we had moved in.?
Her father did not believe her for many years, until recently.
?There?s a little girl and there?s some bigger people,? the 75-year-old father said. ?I see things in my daughter?s room, and that?s what scares me.?
The daughter said the scariest thing anyone has experienced was when her brother was a baby and her mother was rocking him. She said her mother looked up and saw three men each pointing a gun at her. After flinching and closing her eyes, she said, the men were gone.
The more recent sightings have left the family frustrated and bewildered.
?We just want whatever they are to leave,? the daughter said. ?We had a pastor and a missionary come pray over the house 20 years ago, and it had worked, but just recently we started seeing things again.?
Leto said that having someone say a prayer over the house and family helps.
?It has worked every time,? Leto said.
After a night and full morning of investigation, Saturday?s investigation produced some exciting results for the team.
?We got some voices and things,? Leto said. ?There were about 12 distinct voices, but that?s not uncommon for a house this old. You have to think of it like a tape cassette. Sometimes if you?ve recorded something onto it and then record over it, the original will show through a little bit.
?We heard some pretty erotic things this morning,? he said. ?Some of them I won?t repeat, but one clearly said ?She wants him,? which is a pretty common theme in what we hear. Oftentimes speech that was once accompanied by strong emotions shows up on our recordings.?
This, according to Leto, is why cemeteries, churches, hospitals and schools are often the most researched.
DIEPART is preparing to launch a documentary-type show on Iowa Public Television.
To contact the group or to view pictures and listen to audio clips of DIEPART?s findings, visit www.diepart.com.
http://www.timesrepublican.com/iowa/art ... cleID=2459
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