BIDDEFORD (Aug 4, 2006): Ghost hunters from the New England Ghost Project spoke to a packed house Saturday night in Biddeford Pool about the signs of haunting they found on Wood Island after spending a night out at the lighthouse and keeper?s house last fall.
Ron Kolek leads the ghost project. His team also includes psychic, medium and empath Maureen Wood and infrared photographer Leo Moffett.
Last fall, Kolek, Wood and Moffet, along with several members of the Friends of Wood Island Lighthouse and reporter Doug Belken from the Boston Globe, went out to Wood Island to see what they could find. Over the course of the night the ghost hunters conducted five investigations in various places around the island.
Their conclusion? Wood Island is definitely haunted and the team can?t wait to go back to see what else they can find. In fact, at Saturday?s talk a chance for two people to go spend the night on the island this fall with Kolek and his crew was auctioned off for $500.
Kolek and the New England Ghost Project have conducted more than 150 investigations into hauntings. But one of their most exciting and revealing expeditions was to the lighthouse on Wood Island, originally built in 1808.
Saturday at the Union Church in Biddeford Pool, Kolek told the audience when he first started hunting ghosts he thought all psychics were charlatans and fakes and he didn?t have any specific beliefs. All he wanted to know, he said, was to find out for himself if there is an afterlife.
Kolek grew up in the Catholic Church and Wood said she believes in God implicitly, but she?s always had the ability to sense spirits and to feel what others are feeling.
Kolek said there are various types of hauntings. One is called residual, which means the same scene plays over and over again and the ghosts don?t interact with a live person. There are also intelligent hauntings during which ghosts deliberately interact with live people, often to send a message.
When asked what the word ?haunting? meant to him, Kolek said a haunting is a spirit who is trying to make contact with the living. ?That doesn?t necessarily mean the spirit is negative or evil. Although we have run into that before, too,? Kolek said.
The first stop for the ghost hunters on their trip out to Wood Island last fall was the top of the lighthouse. Wood almost immediately could sense the presence of a man.
The spirit was sorry about something that had happened, but refused to say what it was he felt remorse about. On the way down the circular tower stairs Wood again encountered a ghost. This time it was a female who was sobbing and crying, but who wouldn?t talk.
After returning to their base camp, Kolek and Moffett decided to go up into the attic to get a visual on one of the ghosts they had already encountered. The two sat in the darkness with the tape recorder going and started to see bright green lights.
Kolek challenged the ghost to show itself. In response they heard a loud banging noise. The two men went to get Wood and sat in the attic for about an hour trying to make contact, but to no avail.
After the attic incident the group decided to go out on the boardwalk ? an elevated, half-mile walkway that connects the boathouse on one end of the island to the lighthouse on the eastern end.
While out on the boardwalk the group kept seeing a black shadow cross in front of them. Wood said she experienced a spirit trying to get her attention, trying to enter into her body. The third time she had the feeling she dropped to the boardwalk like a stone and began crawling along as if she was severely injured and was trying to get away from something.
The most successful incident of the night was when the ghost hunters went into the cellar of the house. At that time Wood made contact with the man again. Then, afterwards, the female spirit came back, and a series of infrared photos taken that night show a female form beginning to materialize.
?It?s really quite remarkable,? Kolek said of the photos and what they revealed. He said the ghost hunters couldn?t see the female form at the time, but said Wood was aware someone was there.
There is a famous story of a murder and subsequent suicide on the island in the late spring of 1896. But Kolek and his group are more interested in the stories that haven?t been told, or aren?t known, and the other spirits that might be haunting the island.
For more information on the New England Ghost Project, go online to www.neghostproject.nstemp.com, or call the ghost line at (978) 455-6678. You can also catch up with Kolek and Wood every Friday
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