Paranormal is normal for ghost investigators
Sci Fi Channel awards hunters top prize for 'haunted' photo
By John W. Barry
Poughkeepsie Journal
June 19, 2006
In the world of orbs and electronic voice phenomena, Dennis Pearce is tops.
The Poughquag resident and founder of Hudson Valley Paranormal Investigations has been awarded first prize in a contest for Best Ghost Picture sponsored by the Sci Fi Channel.
The picture, "Woman Peering Out the Window," captured a ghost on film, Pearce claims. Ghost buffs and fans of the Sci Fi Channel program "Ghost Hunters" agreed.
The contest was staged to promote "Ghost Hunters." Photos were sent in during late April and May and online voters logged their choices between May 29 and June 6.
"The picture is very eerie and was without a doubt one of the best sent in," said Lesley Gunter, who ran the contest for the Sci Fi Channel.
The contest was open to anyone who lived in the United States. As the top vote-getter, Pearce won a DVD set of the first season of "Ghost Hunters" and a Sci Fi Channel key ring.
Validation of work
"To be recognized by 'Ghost Hunters' on the Sci Fi Channel, it gives validation to what I'm doing, that I'm not just out there wasting my time," said Pearce, 49. "People do look at you weird when you tell them you're a ghost hunter."
Pearce, a retired boat painter, took the photo at the former Bennett Women's College in Millbrook, now abandoned and dilapidated. The photograph was taken on one of the many nighttime excursions that Pearce takes to places like cemeteries and abandoned buildings.
Pearce's interest in the paranormal was triggered years ago by footsteps he heard in his family's weekend home in Beekman. One night while laying on the couch and watching "Saturday Night Live," Pearce said, he heard a ghost walking through the room.
"I felt his presence and I heard his footsteps," Pearce recalled. "It scared the living bejesus out of me."
That incident sparked in Pearce an interest in the paranormal. But over the past five years, he said, this topic has become "a calling."
"I've read every book, watched every TV show," he said.
Pearce also launched Hudson Valley Paranormal Investigations, which explores the spirit world and investigates sights and sounds at no charge for people who believe their house is haunted.
Armed with digital cameras to capture what the naked eye might not be able to see, and analog and digital recording equipment to capture what might not be audible to the ear, Pearce and the seven members of what he called a "research group" head out into the field. They are currently investigating a home in Dover.
"I want to find out what's on the other side," said Hudson Valley Paranormal Investigations co-founder Tom Williams of Wingdale. "I was always wondering."
Pearce said he has captured orbs on camera and the voice of spirits on recording equipment. Orbs, he said, are "spherical balls of light" that are actually life forms.
Says there are voices
At the house in Dover, Pearce said, he recorded what he claims are the voices of dead Mohican Indians. These are what he refers to as an "electronic voice phenomenon." He said the house was built on a Mohican Indian burial ground that is more than 300 years old.
It's all part of a fascination that many of us ? enthusiasts like Pearce or someone who pays $10 to have their palm read ? have with the paranormal, the world of the spirits, the "other side."
"I think it's our human nature to find the unknown," said Pearce, who is writing a book about his paranormal experiences. "I want to know that there is life after death. That we don't end here. And I believe we don't."
John W. Barry can be reached at jobarry@poughkeepsiejournal.com
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
