By RYAN E. SMITH
BLADE STAFF WRITER
Standing in a cemetery after dark is eerie enough when you're not searching for ghosts. When you're on the lookout for the paranormal just weeks before Halloween, it can be downright spooky.
Local ghost hunter Bryan Sayre found out for himself when he and a small team interested in the paranormal spent an evening at Wolfinger Cemetery, located inside Secor Metropark in Richfield Township, following up on tales of spectral children playing among the tombstones.
"It was a little on the creepy side," he admitted. "Anytime you heard something or thought you saw something, you kind of took a double take."
Mr. Sayre, 38, is co-lead investigator of Toledo Haunted Occurrences Research, or THOR. He started the group last year with Ross Carr, who works with him at Johns Manville in Waterville. The two were inspired by the television show Ghost Hunters, which follows the real-life adventures of a group of paranormal investigators on the Sci-Fi Channel.
They're not alone.
"There are groups popping up all over the place," said Robin Lemkie, of Allen Park, Mich., who has watched the proliferation of paranormal researchers since she founded Ghost Hunters of Southern Michigan about a decade ago. "People are very interested in Ghost Hunters on TV, and there's a lot of live shows with psychics, things like that."
Americans aren't just interested; they believe. A Harris Poll from 2005 indicates that 40 percent of adults in the United States believe in ghosts, and television shows - from Ghost Whisperer on CBS to Medium on NBC - have capitalized on it.
That doesn't surprise Joe Nickell, senior research fellow for the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry in Amherst, N.Y., who investigates claims that seem beyond the known bounds of science and nature.
"It's become something of a mania of our time," he said. "The paranormal in general promises wonderful things. If flying saucers are real, then we are not alone in the universe. If ghosts are a reality, then we don't really die."
He's not one of the believers, however. The truth, he says, is that science has never been able to document a single ghost, and those who claim to have evidence begin with the assumption that ghosts are real, quasi-physical entities that can be detected.
"People should have pause why the real scientists can't find this 'energy' and amateurs with Radio Shack equipment can," said Mr. Nickell, a former magician and detective who has co-authored a book on forensic investigation.
"There are all sorts of mechanical glitches and things that can be picked up by the equipment they're using that may look very spooky to an amateur ... certainly not proof of anything."
Mr. Sayre admits that he's learning as he goes along - picking up information from books, television, and the Internet - but said that even though he believes in ghosts, he always goes into an investigation skeptical.
"Our strategy is actually to go into an environment and see if we can find a logical explanation," he said.
The tools of the trade include night vision video cameras and non-contact, infrared thermometers to detect cold sports that could be evidence of ghostly activity. There also are digital still cameras and equipment to detect changes in the electromagnetic field, based on the theory that when spirits manifest themselves they alter the EMF.
THOR, whose half-dozen members include Mr. Sayre's father, Roger, put these to use at Wolfinger Cemetery. The ghost hunters who were there also walked around with digital audio recorders asking questions, hoping to hear a supernatural response (called Electronic Voice Phenomenon) when they play it back later.
It will take time to go through all the recordings, but Mr. Sayre said some of the investigators there that night got an immediate response.
"Three of us ... could have swore we heard a whisper in our ears," he said.
Still, team member Diana Dezanett said it was a difficult venue to get clear results because there were other variables - nearby traffic, outdoor lighting - to contaminate evidence. The Fremont housewife preferred an earlier investigation at a local restaurant where she said she actually felt something stroke her hair and run fingers around her arm.
Ms. Dezanett understands that others might not think that ghosts exist, and that's OK.
"Everybody's entitled to their own opinion," she said.
The Baptist woman's own belief goes back to personal experience. As a child, she said, she saw toys move, doors open, and other paranormal phenomena.
"I do believe in heaven and hell. I also believe that maybe these so-called spirits that people are encountering maybe just lost their way," she said.
Getting to the bottom of things tends to offer more questions than answers. Getting permission from property owners to check out tales of the supernatural isn't easy, and finding strong evidence is even harder, Mr. Sayre said.
"The problem is paranormal activity doesn't seem to have a set time of day that it wants to respond, so a lot of times the personal experiences that people have are sometimes the best evidence," he said.
It's not as if trained scientists are lining up to do the work, either.
"Right now this is considered a fringe science and to be perfectly honest most mainstream scientists aren't going to put their reputation on the line and say what they do is study ghosts," Mr. Sayre said. "We're hoping to take those steps to helping that change."
Mr. Nickell doesn't see that happening. Instead, he likes to offer a different spin on the paranormal.
"I often say this place isn't haunted, [but] it ought to be."
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