BY JULIAN CAVAZOS
The Brownsville Herald
July 13, 2006 ? During the summer, some children will spend their time in a swimming pool, others will play baseball, and some will perhaps tinker with science experiments at home.
But for a select few, this summer is all about ghost hunting.
A group of children learned how to detect ghosts the old-fashioned way in one of Brownsville?s oldest buildings, the stable of the old Charles Stillman House in downtown.
?An old way to detect ghosts is to place a recorder on the faucet,? said Victor Lopez, of the Rio Grande Valley Paranormal Investigators who taught the course Wednesday.
?Sometimes, the faucet will turn on, toilets will flush, doors open and close, showers will go on, the mirror will have hand marks on it, and sometimes you can see their steps,? said the paranormal investigator, the chief instructor for the Shades of History program by the Brownsville Historical Society.
The three day course continues today.
Lopez taught the children how to use an L-shaped rod called a dowser that acts as a compass to find ghosts.
?Here, I have two dowsers,? said Lopez in his demonstration. ?The one on the left side is pointing where it wants you to go. It is giving you directions. The other one is spinning telling you how much energy is available. Sometimes it won?t spin and they will start to go on a cross-line. That?s when you start asking questions that something could be around us. Once they stop, both pointing in a particular direction; you know which way to go.?
Dowsers are responders to energy and manifest itself in what is known as an orb, he said.
These are small circular particles or smears of light that appear in the air in photographs taken by a camera. Some researchers feel that they are spherical representations of souls, since they are often found in haunted areas. Other researchers disagree.
Children who attended the program last month can attest to having seen spirits present at the Stillman house.
?At the Stillman house on the second window, I saw a little girl who was dressed as of old times, and she was just standing there,? 12-year-old Lynn Garza said. ?I told my friend to take the picture, and the little girl came out on it. You can see her face. She had brown hair.?
Alexandra Marino, another attendee, had a similar experience.
?We went in the kitchen when the door was open, and my friend Iris saw that the other door was open to the house, and she wanted to go in,? she said. ?I was scared that something was in there, and so I didn?t want to go in. As I was leaving, I walked in-between these two tables. That?s when she said she saw two hands, and the door slammed.
?It was really loud,? Alexandra said. ?That?s when I screamed and ran out.?
According to the Stillman House Museum, the house was built in 1850 by Henry Miller. It was inhabited by Charles Stillman, founder of Brownsville, and his family. What used to be the stable was later turned into an apartment for a caregiver for the museum. The stable was refurbished this past January, and now serves as a fun place for kids to have activities.
For Priscilla Rodriguez, Brownsville Historical Association executive director, sees the program as one not just about finding ghosts, but also as a fun way to get children to learn about their local history and heritage.
?It?s not necessarily about ghosts,? she said. ?Stories like La Llorana is one that fascinates people, and it has become part of their culture. I think every family has its own story of something strange that?s happened.
?If we can get kids excited about reading and learning about something they didn?t know before, we did our job.?
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