Who you gonna call: Maryland Paranormal Research Team leader Dave Weigert can?t wait to hear from you ... if you?ve passed on. photo by Joseph M. Giordano
by Joseph M. Giordano
It?s a safe bet Casper won?t show up, but you can count on at least 13 ghosts being discussed when the Maryland Paranormal Research Team converges on the St. Helena Community Center on Friday night.
The four-hour event, hosted by team president and Graceland Park resident Dave Weigert Sr., will feature a talk about ghost photography and electronic voice phenomena (EVP) by psychic Beverly Litsinger and a presentation by Glen Burnie native Bill Bean, author of Dark Force, about his life in a so-called haunted house.
?We?re welcoming everyone who?s interested in the paranormal,? Weigert said. ?It?s for people who want to learn about the unexplained.?
Weigert?s group was founded three years ago.
?I?ve always been interested in the paranormal,? Weigert said. ?Things happened in my family that contributed to my research into the paranormal.?
Weigert said his first brush with the supernatural came in 1976 when he was 13.
?I was laying on the floor of my house reading or something,? said Weigert, 44. ?I heard the door open and my brother came in and I watched him go upstairs.?
About an hour later, a neighbor came to the house to tell Weigert?s parents that their eldest son, Charles, had been in what would prove to be a fatal car accident on Old Eastern Avenue.
?I told them that that was wrong,? Weigert said. ?I had just watched my brother come in and go upstairs. But when I got to our room, it was dark and the beds were untouched. That?s part of the reason I became an investigator.?
During an interview Friday, Weigert produced a photograph from a private investigation in Overlea.
In the photo, a translucent, almost smoky mass seems to be that of a person sitting down.
?You can see the legs and an arm,? Weigert said pointing to the 8-by-10-inch photo. ?We call that ectoplasm. A lot of people dismiss it as smoke, but it?s not. And it?s not on the frame before or after this one.?
Like the now-defunct Greater Dundalk Paranormal Investigations (GDPI) group, which was headed by Jamie Henkin, Weigert?s team does not charge to visit a house for an investigation.
?We can get requests for six or seven investigations per month,? Weigert said. ?Although 2007 could have been better.?
Weigert arrives at a home with a team ? which is closed to new membership for the time being ? of five investigators and standard ghost-investigating equipment like digital recorders, infra-red cameras and video recorders.
?We?re try to be thorough,? said Weigert, who still calls himself a skeptic. ?You have to be.?
Weigert has no problem debunking so-called ?orbs,? particles of light on a photograph that some think are spirits.
?If you go to the catacombs [at Westminster Church on Fayette Street] and take a picture, you get a lot of orbs,? Weigert said. ?But that?s just dust. Some things can be explained away. You have to keep an open mind when you?re a paranormal investigator.?
Due to an illness, author Rosemary Ellen Guiley will not be in attendance as previously announced.
Paranormal lecture: Friday, Feb. 8, from 6 to 11 p.m. at the St. Helena Community Center, 6509 Colgate Ave. Tickets are $12 (must be 16 to attend). For more information, call Dave Weigert at 443-216-7413.
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