All about fun: Two women lead students through technique but keep the mood light
By Kim Burgess
Close-Up Correspondent
The Forever Bronze Tanning Salon is a cheery white-stucco building with hardwood floors, potted plants and overflowing magazine racks.
Business is brisk, but eight women in the basement aren't here to work on that perfect glow. In fact, what they're looking for is more likely to turn them pale.
Welcome to Ghost Hunting 101, a five-week course that covers the nuts and bolts of seeking out spirits.
For $45, students learn ghost-hunting basics, including the typical types of entities (poltergeist, intelligent and residual) and the necessary equipment (flashlight, notebook, tape recorder and 35 mm camera), and they attend four field trips to haunted locations along the Wasatch Front.
The class also provides plenty of opportunities for students to share their own encounters with the paranormal.
"In my house, I often smell a scent of heavy men's cologne when no one is around," one woman said.
"My husband and I used to live in a house where we could hear footsteps in the attic at night," said another.
The group is relaxed and comfortable, though most of the students wished to remain anonymous. "My son probably wouldn't want to know that I'm coming here," one said with a laugh.
Instructors Tifany Jorgensen and Marie Jackson are used to the combination of fascination and embarrassment their class generates. In fact, breaking down ghost-hunting stereotypes is one of their primary goals.
"In our group, we have a scientist and an archeologist," Jorgensen said.
"It's not like we're spending the night in cemeteries or anything," Jackson said. "We're pretty normal, everyday people."
For Jackson, being a normal, everyday ghost hunter means fitting in investigations between caring for her 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son and appearing in community theater productions.
Jorgensen holds a day job at the Forever Bronze Tanning Salon, which her family owns.
Her earliest ghostly encounter was seeing a cloaked figure in the hallway of her Emigration Canyon home as a little girl. "It would run toward my bedroom and disappear just as it got there," she said.
Though Jackson has never seen a ghost in person, the spirit world has always been a fascination, which has included reading tarot cards and visiting psychics. "My life goal is to see a ghost," she says.
"My life goal is also for her to see a ghost," Jorgensen says with a laugh.
The exchange is typical. Jokes flow easily between the pair, particularly when they finish each other's sentences, a habit that developed over their three years of ghost hunting together.
Their partnership began with private investigations of haunted homes and businesses. Individuals paid them to determine if the property was haunted, a process that includes taking photos and making audio recordings to listen for electronic voice phenomena (EVP), the most coveted evidence in ghost hunting. EVP involves walking through the haunted location with a tape recorder running.
At the time no sound is audible; but when the tape is played back, voices appear.
"When you hear your first EVP, it's like Christmas," Jorgensen said.
Both instructors emphasize that for them, ghost hunting is science, not superstition.
"The things we find are not explainable. . . . We as ghost hunters go in there trying to prove that there isn't a haunting. That's our approach. You want that perfect balance of skepticism and believing. If you believe too much, then everything is a ghost; if you believe too little, then nothing is," Jackson said.
After gaining experience with five investigations, the two attended a ghost-hunting class to deepen their skills, but were disappointed by its lack of teacher-student interaction.
A six-month debate led them to offer their own class in January. Many of their 11 students have stayed in touch and will participate in field trips with the current class, which is their second.
"We had a lot of positive response," Jorgensen said. "And I had always wanted to be a teacher, so the class satisfies part of that."
Both believe they are successful teachers because they have a fun, relaxed attitude. "We try not to intimidate people and [to] maintain a good reputation. A lot of this is word of mouth," Jackson said.
During the class at Forever Bronze, they clearly had a good time demonstrating ghost hunters' equipment, including some that has fallen out of use. Jackson giggled as she held two metal dowsing rods. "I can never get these to point straight. We don't use these. Some people do, and that's fine, but we don't."
Another outdated piece is a bright-yellow Geiger counter, made famous in the "Ghostbusters" movies.
Between the funny times are concrete tips: Never whisper while you're recording EVP; make note of any strange noises you hear; always carry fresh batteries.
Next fall, Jorgensen and Jackson will have a chance to impart this ghost hunting wisdom to more students when they teach a course through University of Utah Continuing Education.
They hope this new teaching experience will give them access to haunted sites on campus. "We've heard that Fort Douglas is great," Jackson said.
They would also like to conduct more private investigations and gain national reputations as ghost hunters.
"We don't charge very much for the investigations. We mostly do it because we love it," Jackson said. "We could talk about ghosts all night."
"And we do," Jorgensen adds with a laugh.
Source: http://www.sltrib.com/sugarhouse/ci_3703658
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