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Hunting for Ghosts in Standish

October 18, 2010 - STANDISH -- Ghost hunters, sensitives, paranormal investigators - whatever you want to call them - are a different breed. While the rest of us are stuck in the dimension of a 9-to-5 workday yearning for nothing more than a peaceful, relaxing weekend, those interested in other planes of existence are out on the edge of the temporal, in hopes of finding proof of the eternal.

Such was the case last Saturday night at the Old Red Church in Standish. The church on Oak Hill Road is a historic relic completed in 1804, antique in architecture containing the mysterious marks of more than 200 years of history. A handful of hobbyist, unpaid ghost hunters from two area paranormal investigative agencies - Sanford-based Everything Paranormal of New England and River Cities Paranormal Society out of Westbrook - descended on the brilliant burgundy church with the hopes of recording and documenting a ghostly presence.

According to Renee Alling, operator of Everything Paranormal, who runs a group home in Sanford as her day job, the Old Red Church has long been a point of interest of hers, and after asking the church's board of directors to allow her team to investigate, she was given clearance for Saturday night's six-hour investigation.

Tons of equipment

The teams arrived at 5:30 p.m. As Alling and her team unpacked their vehicles in the church parking lot, it became apparent that one of the hardest things about documenting the presence of ghosts and residual energy is setting up all the necessary equipment.

Once inside the imposing red building, Alling and her fellow investigators pieced together a vast network of sensors capable of spanning the entire light spectrum. Rather than solely rely on the visible light spectrum, which the human eye can see, the team also used high-tech cameras that can record other wavelengths, including infrared and ultraviolet. The cameras were all networked to a single laptop, set up in the back of the church and operated by investigator Ted Cantor.

And since the team believes ghosts could choose to reveal themselves audibly, they also employed digital audio recording equipment including a digital tuner and shortwave radio. All this equipment costs money, and all told, there was close to $10,000 worth of audio-visual devices between the two teams. But, team members are quick to point out that most of the equipment had the Energy Star seal of approval.

"The good thing about ghost hunting is it's energy efficient," said Mark Hussey of the River Cities team. "We're green."

Hussey, who was helping to set up all the gadgets prior to settling down for the night, said the key to documenting the presence of ghosts is to "think outside the box" and "cover all your frequencies."

After all the stationary equipment was ready to go, a process that took about an hour, each team member was also armed with a digital cameras, both video and still. Assuming ghosts aren't afraid of flashes going off every few seconds, Alling said, the equipment is necessary for two reasons: First, the point of the investigation is to document paranormal activities for a client. Without audio or video, there is little proof to back up what the investigators may find.

Secondly, ghosts have been known to only reveal themselves on recordings. After an investigation, Alling and her teammates spend the next week or so listening to the many hours of recordings, both audio and visual, from the eight cameras and various audio devices. If an investigation lasts six hours, as the Old Red Church's did, the team has to scour several dozen hours of recordings. And it's in that process, they say, that true paranormal activity can be found.

"We could go somewhere and hear nothing, but when we check the recording, we'll see or hear something that we didn't notice when we were there, a strange noise or a strange orb in a photo," Alling said. "And it's not something you can fast-forward through. We watch everything in regular time."

Here an orb,
There an orb

One such phenomenon that reveals itself better on video is the presence of orbs. Orbs are a hotly debated topic among paranormal investigators, with some, such as Alling and others on her team, saying they are balls of spiritual energy left over from spirits stuck in this plane. Others, such as team members from River Cities, say they are merely dust particles floating on air currents.

Whomever you believe, seeing an orb on the visible light spectrum video that River Cities captured was almost a constant occurrence at the Old Red Church.

"There are two ways to look at orbs. Dust, or something else. I'm not really sure what they are," Alling said. "Some are definitely pieces of dust, but I've seen some that have a clear center."

Upon close inspection of one such orb captured with her high-resolution digital camera, Alling has found a person's face.

And indeed, on Saturday night, Alling described how a "big blue ball of light" manifested itself from a corner of one of the upstairs rooms and proceeded to float toward the center of the room and then out of view of the camera.

"How do you explain it? I don't know how. But we've got it on video," Alling said.

Hello stranger

Orbs weren't the only phenomena seen Saturday night. One strange occurrence was an exchange between investigators and what they saw as a ghost who communicated via a flashlight.

Shortly after all the equipment was set up, the sun had set and Alling had turned out the lights, team members set up a flashlight on the altar of the sanctuary. The light was of the twist-on variety, rather than a button. One of Alling's teammates, Bob Randall, set the flashlight so the light was twisted almost into the "on" position to make it easier, they said, for a ghost to communicate.

"We need a way to communicate with the other side, and a flashlight, which they can turn on and off, seems to be a good way to do it. We've had good luck with it in the past," Alling said.

Once the flashlights were in place, team members took a seat in one of the old box pews set up around the church, with recording devices and cameras in hand. Another high-tech gadget threw a matrix of lighted dots covering the altar and surrounding walls and ceiling in hopes of detecting ghost movements.

Then, as the sanctuary quieted, the hair-raising conversation began. Shannon Fasone, a soft-spoken Everything Paranormal team member, began by trying to calm whoever or whatever was listening and observing the unusual hubbub in the usually quiet church.

"We are here to simply document that you exist. None of the lights around the room will harm you," she said.

After a minute of silence, Fasone continued. "Is there anyone here that used to come to church here? If you don't want to approach the flashlight could you make a bang, a knock, like this," she said, then knocked three times on the bench of her pew box. "There's a flashlight up on the altar that if you want to you can manipulate, and we can ask you some questions."

Alling went over to show the ghosts where the flashlight was and to point out a device that recorded electromagnetic fields.

"If you want to talk to us, all you have to do is walk in front and it will go off. But we'd really like you to use the flashlight," Alling said in as non-threatening a voice as she could muster.

For the next several minutes, no one asked a question and the flashlight just sat. No activity at all, especially of the paranormal variety. After 20 minutes or so of Alling reassuring any ghosts that the team meant no harm and that they had come "a long way just to talk to you," weird stuff began happening. The flashlight turned on after Alling said, "Don't worry, you can't scare us, we just want to communicate with you." After the light shined dimly, Alling said empathetically, "Thank you, you're trying."

Alling's teammate, Ted Cantor, who says he is sensitive to psychic phenomena, proved to be the best communicator with what the investigators described as a female ghost he kept referring to as "Maggie."

"Curious aren't you?" he said. "Would you like to communicate with us now, sweetheart?"

Over the next hour or so, the team sat in the pews and tried to communicate by means of a simple twist flashlight. Whoever or whatever was turning the light on had trouble turning it off and needed encouragement by Cantor.

But once the silence was broken by means of a single light beam that would shine and then dim slowly until completely switched off, presumably by the ghost's mustered energy, a conversation seemed to take place with investigators finally being able to narrow down the identity of the spirit.

After asking yes-or-no questions such as "If you are a female, can you turn that light on for me, please?" Cantor was able to figure out the female ghost was living alone but not lonely in the Old Red Church, was over 30 (and protective of her actual age) when she died, had gone to school at the church when it served as a school in the late 1800s and early 1900s, was a young woman in the 1930s, had blonde hair, wore glasses, was a member of a wealthy, well-known family in the area and knew how to cross over to the other side but was choosing to stay at the Old Red Church.

Pretty good for a ghost who probably never even saw a flashlight before.

Who knows?

Ghost hunting for these investigators is more than a hobby; it's a passion.

"I want to know if ghosts exist," said River Cities investigator Scott Gogeun, who has yet to see a ghost in two years of searching. "And if they do exist, what are they like? It's fascinating."

After sitting in the sanctuary listening to the flashlight-assisted conversation, one could definitely leave feeling that only something abnormal, if not paranormal, could physically turn the flashlight on and off in sync, for the most part.

But, on the other hand, if you want to remain skeptical, you could argue the flashlight was set in such a precarious way that it could be turned on with the slightest motion or movement.

But the mystery is the best part, according to River Cities investigator Mark Hussey.

"Maybe we'll stir them up like a hornet's nest. I'm just curious. It can be a little scary, but that's the fun of it," Hussey said.

Alling said she's now a believer after many strange run-ins with the paranormal over her years of investigation.

She may yet make believers of others, as well, as she will reveal her findings to the public starting at 7 p.m. on Monday, Oct. 25, at the Standish Town Hall.

Posted: Friday, October 15, 2010 11:15 am
By John Balentine jbalentine@keepmecurrent.com


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