Olathe Investigators | Group looks into reports of the unexplained: in Search of the Paranormal
When Amanda Hopkins heard about strange goings-on at the Lyric Opera of Kansas City, she wasted no time setting up an investigation.
It was no ordinary one. Odd noises had been heard, with police called to look into the disturbances.
And when the police and their dogs found nothing, the Olathe Society for Paranormal Research and Investigation took over.
Founder Diane Gonzalez came equipped with a crew, cameras, security monitors and voice recorders. Thermometers and Gauss meters detect temperature and electromagnetic changes in the area.
'We're like 'MythBusters,'' the Discovery Channel TV show that debunks hoaxes, she said.
Gonzalez will teach a new class at Johnson County Community College this fall, taking class members on investigations and deflating common deceptions with photos and voice recordings.
She hopes curious people find out more and she welcomes skeptics to the class.
Gonzalez and the group are one of several paranormal investigator groups in the area, which include the Paranormal Activity Investigators, WISP and the North Missouri Ghost Hunters Society. The Olathe group has looked into everything from 'hostile' rooms to mysteriously exploding light bulbs.
Flawn Barber, director of production at the Lyric Opera, hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary. 'I haven't heard anything or seen anything,' she said. 'I'm just in my office. If anything's going on, it's here in the theater.'
The Lyric Opera opened as a Scottish Rite temple in 1917, was converted into a movie theater and has been a theater since 1976. It seats 1,622 patrons and has the newsroom of KMBC 9 TV under it. Barber said an employee was in the building late at night when he heard 'a lot of commotion.'
'It sounded like someone was physically taking things out of the building,' she said.
Fearing thieves were at work, he called the police, who brought dogs.
'The dogs would not come into the house,' Barber said, referring to the theater. 'Everything was accompanied by a bad odor.'
Gonzalez said the strange behavior could indicate something unusual.
'They're animals trained to attack and search,' she said. 'To stop at a door, they must feel something, feel uneasy.'
Gonzalez is careful to eliminate sources of odd phenomena. When the crew goes in to investigate, it covers glass and reflective surfaces - so the reflections aren't photographed as orbs - and try to reproduce the same noises that occupants complain about.
She also asks if the occupants have ever taken any hallucinogenic drugs, to make sure the disruptions aren't imagined. Video cameras left overnight record the goings on, supernatural or otherwise.
'You catch a lot of people trying to hoax you,' Gonzalez said. She and her husband watch each tape frame by frame for unusual phenomena.
Hopkins has gone on several investigations with Gonzalez, where they are careful not to talk so they don't influence each other, but take notes they later compare. Not all the investigators believe in the paranormal.
'I've never found anything, I'm just skeptically curious,' said Tabatha Joeckle, a medical assistant, who was introduced to the group by her brother Bill. 'I don't believe in feelings and sensations.'
Gonzalez said skeptics are welcome, as long as they understand the group's mission.
'We're not called 'ghost hunters,'' she said. 'We're called 'paranormal investigators.''
If something out of the ordinary occurs, they don't refer to the phenomena as 'ghosts' or 'dead people.'
'We ask if anyone here wants to talk to us,' Gonzalez said. 'We don't call them 'dead persons' because they may not know or (could) feel insulted.'
And if something's there, she advises getting help from clerics who have experience. The group does not have a psychic or demonologist.
Gonzalez said that those incidents are few and far between, though.
'With pictures, we debunk 90 percent of stuff we're sent,' she said. 'I have yet to run into anything, although I've had things thrown at me off a cabinet with 10 witnesses.'
Gonzalez first saw something about 30 years ago on her confirmation day.
'I looked down at my ring and I saw something in the ring,' Gonzalez said. It was a monk walking in a cathedral with a box in his hands.
She was shocked and told the priest what she saw. He reassured her and told her the vision was a gift from God.
Gonzalez will share more of her experiences in her Johnson County Community College class.
She plans to take the first class to a cemetery to take pictures for the next class, in order to spot paranormal activity.
Gonzalez says orbs will probably show up, which come from reflections of granite crystal headstones.
'People are wrapped up in ghost hunting,' she said, with the popularity of shows like 'Ghost Hunters' on the Sci Fi Channel. And after studying paranormal activity, Gonzalez doesn't feel frightened for herself.
'Nothing follows you home,' she said.
MORE ONLINE
The Olathe Society for Paranormal Research and Investigation looks into unusual activity for no charge. Visit ospri.net.
CLASS AT JCCC
Diane Gonzalez will teach a class on paranormal activity, including how to detect it and how to spot hoaxes. The four-week class will be offered 6 to 8 p.m. Thursdays, Sept. 7-28 at Johnson County Community College.
An intermediate session will be offered Thursdays, Oct. 5-26, and a session on electronic voice phenomena technology will be Nov. 2-30.
Each session is $49, not including optional books.
http://www.topix.net/content/kri/050274 ... 2353898549
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