It's a frigid winter night -- almost too cold to be out looking for ghosts. A full moon looms overhead as teacher Jackie Meador and her paranormal class investigate a small hotel nestled in the eastern Madera County foothills.
At nearly 10:30 p.m., they split into small groups of five or so. One of the groups ventures outside to the front of this well-lit rustic lodge, the Sierra Sky Ranch Resort. Bundled in heavy jackets and sweaters to brace against 36-degree weather, they start working with their equipment, such as digital cameras and voice recorders.
"You guys get anything cool yet?" asks Terry Campbell, a security consultant and student in Meador's Fresno Adult School course, "Paranormal Studies 101, Investigating Ghosts Hauntings."
It's one of the school's most popular community courses, an indicator of people's ongoing fascination with those things that just can't be rationalized. It's why films such as "The Sixth Sense," "Ghost" and "The Others" draw big audiences.
Campbell's group keeps chitchat to a minimum. They know, because it's so cold, not to mistake foggy breath for anything else on photos. And they snap them in quick succession, to show what a scene looked like in just a few seconds, should they catch an unexplainable image.
Which is what happens to Campbell in front of the pear tree.
He says he thinks he has something. Classmates peer over his shoulder. There, on his camera's screen, is one photo of the pear tree, followed immediately by another of the tree -- this time with strands of white mist at the top of the frame.
The shot is mysterious. And Campbell is excited.
"It's awesome," he says. "It's kind of like Christmas. ... You open up the presents and see what you got."
Jackie Meador is a petite, energetic grandmother who says she's "pushing 60." A Fresno County employee, she reminds you of actress Kathy Bates with her friendly, down-to-earth, authoritative manner. She and husband Mark "Oly" Meador lived in other parts of the state before coming to Fresno in 1981.
At age 10, she watched ghost movies on Saturday afternoon television: "I was always fascinated. Who are they? Where are they coming from?"
But it wasn't until seven years ago that her interest in the paranormal surged. She searched for formal courses but spotted few. She finally found a group in the Bay Area and learned from them, traveling to states such as Arizona, Alabama, and Utah.
In 2001, she and Oly founded Central California Paranormal Investigators (www.ccpifresno.net). Meador has conducted about 75 investigations -- all for free in the name of research -- at places such as private homes, hotels and cemeteries.
One day, a notice in a Fresno Adult School catalog caught her eye: Anyone with a course idea should call. She wondered whether people would take a paranormal class.
"Paranormal goes on all around us, and people want to know what's happening. They want to know if they're going crazy, if what they're really seeing is something or if it's just their imagination," Meador says. "They're asking serious questions, and they want serious answers. And that's why I do what I do."
She taught her first course last spring, with a limit of 20 students. Plenty of others wanted in -- and still do.
Sherry McClelland, a Fresno Adult School vice principal, says the school sometimes takes it cue from popular subjects sparked by TV shows or other trends. She says Meador's course is one of the favorites on a schedule that lists 250 to 300 community classes at a time.
But why so much interest?
"It's the mystery, the wonder, the idea of the paranormal," McClelland says. "I think there's an allure. And I think people have their own personal reasons."
Campbell is one of those people, and for good reason -- it's what he experienced as an 11-year-old boy growing up in Fresno.
One night, he had just lain down in bed and happened to look at the hallway. He saw a small figure wrapped in a blanket walk past his door. Must be Mom heading for her bedroom. He waited for her lights to turn on. They didn't. Confused, he walked down the hallway the other way. Mom still was watching television.
"When something like that happens, it's not so much a scream-in-terror thing," says Campbell, now 37. "It's kind of surreal, like 'OK, that just happened.' "
A few weeks later, Campbell says, he was eating a sandwich at the kitchen counter ... when the toaster oven did something.
"The door opened slowly, as if you had something hot [inside it] and were looking inside," Campbell recalls. "Then it just deliberately shut itself. I'll never forget it."
When a friend told him about Meador's class, Campbell knew he had to take it. And he's enjoying himself.
The March night trek is one reason why. The unexplained will surface more than once. It's not just the white wisps captured by Campbell's camera. For example, it's the nauseous feeling some will feel when they come to the bottom of a certain flight of stairs, or batteries drained of power faster than usual. Meador says that spirits, in trying to manifest themselves, draw energy off other sources.
Campbell understands there are skeptics about the paranormal.
"Everybody is entitled to their own opinion," he says. "My opinion is that there's something out there. I can't quite explain it, but there's definitely something more to this."
Meador says it's an investigator's job to collect evidence, analyze it and determine whether a site is paranormal.
And please, don't call them "ghost busters" or similar terms. She says, with one exception, that people don't want to get rid of their ghosts.
Spirits hang around for a variety of reasons. For example, they don't know they're dead, or they believe they were wronged in death and have unresolved business.
Meador uses seven criteria in her investigations: photographic evidence, tape recordings, temperature fluctuations, odors, electromagnetic field disruptions, physical contact and movement of inanimate objects.
She says she's only been in six sites where they found nothing. That's far from the case at Sierra Sky Ranch: "I can probably safely say this is probably the only place that I would say is haunted."
Paranormal activity may involve a single criterion. To be considered haunted, Meador says a site needs to meet at least five -- Sierra Sky Ranch meets six, all except electromagnetic field disruptions.
The resort dates back to the late 1800s, when it was a cattle ranch. It's also been a tuberculosis convalescent site and, during World War II, a rest center for servicemen. It's since operated as a guest ranch or lodge, changing ownership from time to time.
Ted Roache, one of the resort's three current co-owners, says the spirits are not mean-spirited; they're viewed as protectors and caretakers. Meador says her group has confirmed the presence of four.
"Everything they do is very playful," Roache says.
He delights in his patrons' stories. Like when customers say they've enjoyed their stay but the people upstairs were loud -- Roache tells them there is no room overhead. Or they feel something touched them, or they saw a woman waving from a corner -- a woman who isn't really there.
And lately, Roache says, water has been turning itself on in the bathrooms.
"Most people have fun with it. They're either nonbelievers or extremely curious," he says. "We've had many nonbelievers leaving believing."
Shamalah-Allah, 36, is a believer.
She's also a medium who does personal readings for people. She took Meador's class to broaden her knowledge and education.
At Sierra Sky Ranch, she experiences a couple of things that can't be explained. One involves her compass. The thinking is that if a compass comes in contact with paranormal matter, it will fluctuate from north.
In Shamalah-Allah's case, her compass froze as she stood at the bottom of a porch. When she walked away, it was fine. Another classmate later took it and walked to the top of the porch. "That's when it was jiggling in a northeast direction for a second and then it jumped down to a south direction and it stuck there," Shamalah-Allah says, before the woman started moving around again.
Or there's what happens to Michele Renna. She's 38 and a schoolteacher: "I've always been interested in scary things and ghosts and haunted houses and Halloween."
She's one of the students who feels nauseous at the bottom of some stairs -- a feeling she experienced at a reportedly paranormal site in another community. On this night, she's also with Campbell when he clicks that photo of the white mist.
What will she do with the skills she's learning?
"I don't know. I'm mainly doing it just for fun and entertainment," Renna says. "Honestly, I've been interested in this kind of thing, but I wasn't sure if I really believed in ghosts or not."
After tonight?
"I don't know. I'm beginning to wonder if there really is some type of energy or spirits or something," she says. "Being there with Terry while he took a picture, it was a little bit more convincing."
The reporter can be reached at fmatlosz@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6428.
Eric Paul Zamora / The Fresno Bee
Mark "oly" Meador stands at the top of a stairway while students in the class explore a room. The Sierra Sky Ranch Resort has a reputation for paranormal activity but Ted Roache, resort co-owner, says the spirits aren't mean-spirited.
Eric Paul Zamora / The Fresno Bee
Mary Peterson, center, gathers her camera and flashlight as she and other students break up into three groups to explore the resort.
Eric Paul Zamora / The Fresno Bee
Student Marshall Winter tests the temperature fluctuations with his hand while holding a digital temperature gauge in his other.
http://www.fresnobee.com/221/story/36286.html
