Record-Eagle
January 28, 2007
Ghost Hunters
Paranormal Society on the hunt in northern Michigan
by Garret Ellison,
Record-Eagle staff writer
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GLEN ARBOR In Leelanau County, there is a cemetery you've probably never seen.
The gravestones are well over a century old and falling over. The perimeter is overgrown by the surrounding forest and you can only get there on foot.
It's an eerie spot to be sure, but for the Wind Spirits Paranormal Society, it's the perfect place to go ghost hunting which they did, on a recent Saturday. Armed with electromagnetic field detectors, dowsing rods, temperature gauges and digital recorders, the group investigates the paranormal around the region.
Sue Messman, the founder of Wind Spirits, said there's no shortage of work.
"I've said this a zillion times, she said. "Everyone has a story.
Considering that three out of four Americans hold some kind of paranormal belief, according to a 2005 Gallup Poll, that's not surprising.
"When I tell people I'm in a paranormal society, I don't get, 'Oh, you're weird,' I get, 'I've got to tell you this story of mine,' she said. "It almost gives them the OK to validate that they've had an experience themselves.
Messman, 49, describes herself as a "sensitive, having had premonitions and activity since she was a young girl. After seeing the amount of paranormal followers on-line, she debuted Wind Spirits last summer. There's a core team of three to five members and 26 members spread around the country.
On an investigation, society members record as much information as possible for later review. Messman said the aim is to find a rational explanation for "activity first. Most often, the creepy culprit is electrical problems, airflow issues or structural flaws.
"The majority of it is not paranormal, she said. "Our goal is not to prove, but to disprove.
But when something cannot be explained away after careful review, they consider it a haunting. That falls into three types: residual, where the spirit does its own thing, ignoring nearby humans; intelligent, where the spirit attempts to communicate; and inhuman, where the spirit never was human to begin with, such as a guardian angel or demonic poltergeist.
Common indicators of spirit activity are temperature reading fluctuations and orbs, or small circular spots in investigation photos. A visible apparition is considered the Holy Grail.
"Very rare, Messman said.
On that recent visit to the Glen Arbor cemetery, society member Linda Alice Dewey stops every 10 paces or so to converse with a spirit. Dewey, who penned "Aaron's Crossing in 2005, acts as a self-styled magnet for spirit activity and tries to help ghosts cross over to the next life whenever she can.
"I'm asking this one to come close and put his hands on my shoulder, she says, standing still with her eyes closed as Messman scans her with various instruments.
Dewey first encountered the ghost subject of her book in this cemetery.
"Oh man, this one is really sad, she says. "Come close, come closer... She holds her hands out. "Let there be healers and loved ones to help with your transition. God speed and God bless.
Meanwhile, the temperature gauge Messman is holding at Dewey's back registers a 51-degree fluctuation from negative five to 46 degrees Fahrenheit.
Whether the temperature readings indicate a genuine ghost is a matter of faith for some Wind Spirits members.
"You have to be skeptical, but also want to believe and investigate, said society member Barb Rowling of Bellaire. "I think it's a big learning process.
Deciding whether or not to believe is often the fine line that separates the skeptic from the advocate.
"We go in, take our evidence with our equipment, we debunk and many times we're looking at 30 hours of footage we have to go through, Messman said. "To the skeptic, I would explain that the debunking process can tell if it's something natural that's going on, or something that cannot be explained. It's up to them to decide or not to decide.
Skepticism aside, paranormal activity filters into the news regularly. In November, a Sanford Fla., TV station aired three minutes of tape from an alleged haunted house where a woman could be heard singing.
Also in November, a surveillance camera in a long-considered haunted courthouse in Lincoln County, N.C. captured a ghostly image of a woman writing on a notepad in a locked room. In December, a financial firm in Linlithgow, Scotland tapped a priest to try and rid their offices built atop an old dynamite factory of a suspected poltergeist.
"It's the hunt, Messman said. "I get very excited when I read that online, but I want to do my own experiments and my own investigations to see if I come up with anything nobody else has.
This urge is leading her to the Waverly Hills Sanitarium in Kentucky this summer. It's a sort of Mecca for paranormal societies, including the most well-known, the Trans-Atlantic Paranormal Society, which has gained national prominence as the subject of the Sci-Fi Channel cable TV series "Ghost Hunters.
In northern Michigan, she said some paranormal hotspots include Bowers Harbor on the Old Mission Peninsula, the old state hospital grounds in Traverse City, the Glen Arbor cemetery, an old cemetery in Grayling and a home in the Clam Lake area.
If you're interested in having an investigation conducted, Messman can be reached at windspiritsparanormalsociety@yahoo.com.
