Sandy and Russ Wells are a husband-wife team of supersleuths who seek out the things that go bump in the night.
The Wellses are P.I.s ? paranormal investigators: They track down ghosts and other supernatural entities that prowl premises and rattle nerves.
The couple from Burlington, Skagit County, are young retirees, both 48, with an uncanny knack for finding ghosts and bringing peace of mind to people pestered by the paranormal.
"We're just regular people," says Sandy. "We're not cuckoos running around with 'Ghost Busters' packs on."
The Wellses are members of the Washington State Ghost Society, a nonprofit organization formed in 1998 to investigate all things paranormal, from spirits and ghosts to malevolent entities, commonly known as poltergeists.
The Wellses, card-carrying members of the ghost society since August 2005, have been tracking the otherworldly for three years and researching paranormal phenomena for the past decade.
For them, it's not just a hobby but an intrinsic part of who they are. When they were children, both say they were visited by relatives who had passed on. Those early experiences, and what they say is an innate ability to see and hear things that others cannot, led to their calling as ghost hunters.
The Wellses are on a mission to assuage the fears of people who suspect they are living with departed spirits who, well, won't depart.
Last June, they started a northern chapter of the ghost society, Friends of Ghosts (FOG) Paranormal Investigations and Research, in an office above the Oxford Saloon and Eatery in downtown Snohomish.
The location is fitting, as the Oxford is well-known among ghost trackers and the general public as haunted. The Wellses have done investigations at the popular restaurant and bar, and recorded both eerily real voices and ghostly images ? one appeared to be an elderly woman, illuminated by blindingly bright light; the other was that of a man, who legend has it is an apparition of a police officer.
Friends of Ghosts has conducted investigations at dozens of businesses, many in Snohomish County, and does private residences from Bellingham to Tacoma and points east and west. Conducting an investigation is at once painstaking and paradoxical ? the Wellses go into each one with the objective of explaining the unexplainable.
Who ya gonna call?
Typically, they are contacted by a merchant or homeowner who suspects something supernatural.
"If there is a bump in the night that can't be explained, they call us," Russ says.
Determining the presence of a ghost or other supernatural gadfly is not based on a hunch but rather many hours of research. The objective, Sandy says, is to prove whether an occurrence is paranormal or natural. Strange noises upstairs, for instance, could be the house settling; that rattling in the pipes is likely a plumbing problem, not an apparition.
"If it's a natural phenomena," Sandy explains, "the hardest part is to convince people that it's not a ghost and that they are not hearing or feeling these spirits."
Paranormal activity might manifest itself in subtle ways, such as a general feeling of unease, or be more overt, with objects moving around a room or the appearance of ghostly figures.
On the hunt
All investigations start with a walk through. Sandy and Russ ? typically joined by one or two others from the group ? get a feel for the space.
Ghost hunters usually try to go into an investigation with as little information as possible so they can draw conclusions based on evidence and what they can pick up intuitively, Russ says. Often, he will "get" a name or a date, which may signify someone who once lived in the place or the year that person died. Sometimes he will see startling, vivid images.
"I see people that are there, as real as you and I, then they are gone," says Russ.
When Sandy enters a room or space where ghosts or malevolent spirits are present, she'll be pulled toward a specific spot. It's common for her to become nauseated and dizzy or suddenly get a severe headache when she's near a supernatural entity.
The logistics of an investigation include setting up three to five cameras and placing microphones in different areas of a house or business. To ensure accuracy, everything is captured digitally, and all audio and film recordings are untouched, being kept in their packaging when handled. An average investigation will yield about 1,000 photographs.
Once the on-site investigation wraps up, the crew goes back to the office to begin the second phase of the investigation: research. Investigators go through their recordings and footage looking and listening for abnormalities such as strange sounds or unfamiliar voices.
During the Oxford investigation, which took place upstairs from the bar in the early-morning hours after closing time, the audio recorder picked up distinctive ? and thoroughly spooky ? voices that sound like an adult man and a young boy.
On film, investigators watch for opaque orbs that float in one area of a frame. Footage from an investigation at the Twin Eagles Cafe in Snohomish shows what appears to be a man hunched in the corner of a frame taken below the restaurant.
These are emblematic of a ghost or apparition, investigators say.
To get more of the back story on a site, Sandy will head to the local courthouse or library to build a history profile, looking for how a building was used, who lived there, whether someone died on the premises. After looking at all of the material collected, the investigators deliver their findings to the client.
It feels better knowing
In most cases, Sandy says, confirming the presence of paranormal activity actually puts clients at ease.
"When someone is convinced their place is haunted, they'd rather us prove that it isn't," she says. "But most of the time, they are calmed by the news.
"Most people do live with the ghosts or spirits," she continues. "They just want to know, and they don't want to live in the dark, so to speak."
While most ghosts co-exist peacefully with their mortal counterparts, evil ghosts require the FOG team to go in and "clean the space," Sandy says. This involves talking the ghost to the "other side" and, hopefully, out of the building for good.
Hunting ghosts is nearly a full-time calling for the Wellses, who average two investigations a month. All are done free of charge.
As an investigator, Russ says, "You have to check your fear. Let the ghosts know you aren't there to hurt them."
Invitation to skeptics
The Wellses understand that some people won't believe their ghost stories. Naysayers and skeptics are invited to participate in an investigation and draw their own conclusions.
An interest in finding out more about what lies beyond the living was the impetus for Stephanie and Rich Rowland, of Bothell, to join FOG in July. The couple came across the group during a visit to Snohomish. Although they had no experience dealing with the paranormal, they were curious.
"I wanted to come and see if any of this was real," says Rich, a bus driver by day who has gone on an investigation with Russ and analyzes film and audio.
While her husband is still on the fence about paranormal beings ? he is leaning toward their existence ? Stephanie was convinced after going on an investigation.
"We didn't expect to see anything," Stephanie says. "But then to actually see something [affirms] why you do this."
On Friday and Saturday evenings in October, the Wellses are hosting Spirit Walks, tours of haunted buildings in Snohomish. The walking tour intermingles historical facts on the oldest section of the city along with examples of haunting activity through the years.
On a recent Saturday evening, the tour brought friends Ray Allen, of Seattle, and Joanie Ryder, of Redmond, to Snohomish. Both were looking for something fun in the spirit of Halloween.
"I like the history of this town," Allen says. "And I like getting to the supernatural or ghost part through the history."
While neither are paranormal enthusiasts, Ryder says they "are very open-minded."
As for the Wellses, they plan to expand their operation. They hope to sell their home in Skagit County and buy an RV to travel around the country to scour likely locales for ghosts.
But for now they are content in Snohomish, a town known for its old-time feel, quaint shops, antique stores and numerous haunts.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/s ... cation=rss
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
