September 30–October 7, 1999

cover story

Ghost of a Chance (part II)

by Jay Kirk

story continued from here

After lunch, in the Stratford lobby, I run into the war correspondent taking a thermal scan of the baby grand. Loaded with the highest quality digital ghost-gear on the market, he makes little, automatic shrugs the way a fully armed SWAT captain might. I know how much all this stuff costs from the online catalogs — one may arm oneself handsomely in the service of advancing ghost research for not quite half the budget of Blair Witch. I don’t have to ask how he affords it all. He tells me himself that he’s recently liquidated $40,000 worth of Elvis memorabilia.

"It’s like there’s enough mundaneness in my life — I work 9-to-5, whatever. I want to get out there and experience something out of the ordinary." That W.C. is a correctional officer tacitly corroborates something Troy’s already said: Ghostbusters prefer working with "law enforcement" over scientific types, because cops are trained with "investigative" skills. But, as Ed is quick to point out, forensic scientists do most of the real investigating.

Last year at this time W.C. was in Oregon at the IGHS convention (he’s since defected and started his own online ghost club). During the convention, he went out on a "ghost watch" to investigate the site of a town wiped out by avalanche. They were at the entrance of a train tunnel when he heard what he thought was a dinner party. He heard voices, the clink of champagne glasses. "So I turn around to these guys up the embankment and I say, ‘Do you guys hear this too?’ and they’re like, ‘Yes we do.’"

"In a situation like that," I start to ask, "when you’re with other people who are open to — "

"Yes. Yes. I’m anticipating your question. Yes. Definitely."

I remark on his go-go approach. It’s athletic. He’s, like, a ghost jock. "You’re — I wouldn’t want to say eager…"

"You gotta let ’em know what you want," he says. There is nothing profound or psychic about it. Each encounter he’s earned by sheer willpower. He summons ghosts at will. After he saw his first full-body apparition, he celebrated his new status like a giddy debutante: "Now I’m part of that club!"

One thing that bugs me is the apparent arbitrariness with which "phenomena" are captured. Some, like Troy, claim to wait until they have corroborating phenomena — motion detectors going off, aberrant thermal measurements, EM fluctuations — but most admit to just snapping pictures wherever.

Curious about one of W.C.’s pics of ectoplasm — not the eggy spooge disgorged by mediums of the séance era, but the term as used by today’s G’busta to describe "ghost fog," a protean, misty substance somewhere on the evolutionary scale between an orb and a full-body — I ask how he knew when and where to aim his camera, since ectoplasm, like its neonatal cousin the orb, is invisible to the naked eye.

"At that point it was pure desperation. I just yelled out, ‘OK everybody! Thank you, I’m going home now and this is your last chance to get in a photo!’ And then I got that nice ecto and I was like, ‘Yesss!’" He pumps his fist like he’s scored a goal. "These are the little peaks in the valleys. The thing you live for."

Despite his enthusiasm, W.C. is disenchanted with the conference. He came to see the experts. "To see the people who knew more than me." He sighs impatiently. "But, God, I know as much as these people — or at least I’ve formed opinions, you know, in my eight to nine months that I’ve been doing this. No, it’s a year now — since last July."

Later, just for kicks, I pass several of W.C.’s ecto pics to Troy. Troy’s response: "I have to say that I believe them to show a very spooky camera strap."

 

There are innumerable theories supporting the existence of ghosts. Many ghostbusters seem to find comfort in Einstein’s special theory of relativity (the mystical part about energy and mass being the same) and the First Law of Thermodynamics (the part about how energy cannot be destroyed. But, the longer I stay at this convention, the more I’m convinced that most of the theories are, at a fundamental level, just opinions. Fickle as the rules of child’s play. The cult of hunch. Believers in the paranormal are, in this regard, no doubt, just what skeptic extraordinaire James "the Amazing" Randi calls them: "unsinkable rubber ducks."

The sane should be wary.

Later that day, before the cryptozoologist takes the stage, Troy announces that booths will be closed during speakers because the registers are too noisy. Then, with glowing fanfare, he introduces his "boyhood hero," the author of half a dozen books on Sasquatch. The dude’s slide show begins with a quote he attributes to crypto-pioneer Charles Fort: "One measures a circle beginning anywhere." His own circle began, he tells us, after "fictionalized" accounts of Yeti in movies like The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas inspired him to take seriously his previous decision to become a naturalist (via Wild Kingdom). At age 14 he started chasing monsters full time. Twenty-five years later without so much as a toenail clipping, he plugs on, undeterred.

The rest of his slides are mainly sketches. Sketches no more and no less talented than the handiwork of any 12-year-old boy of average imagination. (Ed filched a deck of playing cards bearing reproductions of these sketches complete with stats on werewolves, phantom clowns, Momo the Hairy Monster, etc. The cards, you should know, are printed by the American Realist Company.) When he starts talking about Devil Monkeys (last mistaken for escaped zoo kangaroos in Utah), I excuse myself. Ed, ever keen on cryptozoology, stays.

	Ed is down the hallway and I’m staring into a very bright light surrounded by the telltale halo of halogen. Rene takes the camera. "Omigod, omigod, it’s crawling with orbs!"

I retreat to the bar. A creepy fella who looks like Harry Dean Stanton, but shadier and more castrated, is at the bar with another guy whom I recall seeing around here earlier during a brief and useless interview with a local psychic named Antoinette. It turns out they are both Antoinette’s assistants. I order a beer and join them. They’re kvetching how the poorly ventilated Masonic Temple (the high point of tonight’s haunted trolley tour) is going to be hotter than bitchcakes and this somehow leads the guy who doesn’t look like Harry Dean Stanton to tell me that he’s a former worshipful master. This leads to a discussion of the Shriners, because, as this Shriner explains, every Shriner is a Mason, but every Mason isn’t necessarily a Shriner. Warming to the topic, I confess a soft spot for the tin lizzie, the miniature Shriner go-cart. How I probably wouldn’t bother with Memorial Day parades if I didn’t think the baton-twirlers and Jaycees would yield to happy old men in sequined lapels and tasseled fezzes, switch-backing the double-yellow line, working the side brakes like one-arm bandits. "Those bastards can turn on a dime," the Shriner gloats. He says it’s too bad I missed the big national convention in St. Louis. More tin lizzies than you could shake a stick at. I change the subject to ask what the hell Bigfoot has to do with ghosts, and Harry Dean Stanton, left out until now, chimes in. His fingers nervously thrum his chin.

"Bigfoot can influence your mind. Do ESP. That sort of thing."

That’s why people run away. Bigfoot scares people by putting bad thoughts in their heads. That’s what he says. I have to ask. "They weren’t just scared because he was a 9-foot-tall hairy anthropoid?"

Nope. "He actually telepathically makes you feel an emotion."

The Shriner looks at his wristwatch and the two giggle. Antoinette is upstairs now prepping the conventioneers for the tour and they’re supposed to be helping, I guess. Truant lackeys. Just before he leaves, the Shriner leans conspiratorially close and whispers: "Did you know a ghost was listening in while you guys were interviewing Antoinette?"

Taking the bait, I follow outside to where the trolleys are lined on the uphill curb. Albert, the trolley pilot, stands off smoking.

I ask the Shriner what he meant. Why, just what he said!

"I was just sitting there listening to the interview when I felt somebody walk up on my left-hand side. I didn’t pick up much more than he was just there kind of watching you guys ’cause he felt you were doing something really odd in the bar and he was being nosy! He wanted to see what the hell was going on, that’s all it boiled down to. He stayed there about five to six minutes and left."

The Shriner knows because he’s a "psychic in [his] own right." Antoinette has her special powers and the Shriner has his. Specifically, he possesses the power "to catch a ghost and hold it still" with his bare hands. He describes electric shocks in his palms, cold shivers down his arms. He compares the sensation to sticking your tongue on a nine-volt battery. He tells me that, generally speaking, at the lodge he can pretty much nail the same ghost every time. And what’s this ghost’s name? Jim. Jim who? Jim Brown. He promises to let me fondle Jim Brown if he comes out tonight. (A promise later heartlessly broken.)

I start to talk to Albert when suddenly here come the conventioneers filing out of the hotel. "Uh-oh," Albert says. "Time to roll." Ed is with Rene. I ask if I missed anything and they tell me Antoinette cloaked them in a "blue-white light of Love and Protection." Not to worry, Ed’s got me covered.

It only seems right that the A.C. on our trolley is busted. Antoinette wears the same big clacky bracelets and flowing blouse she wore during our interview when she gave both Ed and me psychic readings gratis (the results of which are not to be divulged). The faces of the camcorder-armed glow an eerie, grainy viewfinder-blue. But this time we are not left out. I have Rene’s Raytek Raynger ST2L thermal scanner (Specialized Products Company, Irving, TX, $199), and Ed’s packin’ a Natural Electromagnetic (EM) Meter (AlphaLab, Salt Lake City, UT, $220). The permed head in the seat ahead of me is fluctuating between 88.7 degrees and 89.4 degrees.

As Albert hauls us up the first severe grade, it feels less like a trolley than a gondola on a straining winch. We are pressed into miniature wooden benches. Our first stop is an easy 75-degree tilt outside the Unitarian Church. Antoinette explains how a nice man — but a pagan by virtue of being Unitarian — hung himself in the rectory. "Oh freaky, oh cool." A fresh expression yesterday, today everybody says it. "Really freaky." What charismatic planted this meme? At each brief stop outside this or that haunted edifice, the cabin fills with sharp flashes off the interior glass. Ghostly images of a trolley filled to capacity float across my eyes. I overhear W.C. explaining his ideas of paranormal taxonomy. He’s describing a new phylum he believes he’s discovered and jokes (not exactly for laughs) that maybe one day they’ll name it after him the way they name new galaxies after astronomers.

I am flash-blind and seeing orbs when we arrive at our destination. The Masonic Temple is crematorium-hot. (Ed’s back: 95.8 degrees.) After a brief apprisal of how we’re expected to conduct ourselves, a frenzy as frantic as an Easter egg hunt ensues. Everyone is busily investigating, upstairs, downstairs, waving meters, popping flashes, searching for the moody dead. The third floor sways like a barn with foot traffic. Aimless flashlight beams frolic to the aid of no one. At first I try to affect the same purposefulness with my Raynger as the others but soon realize there’s just too much damn activity to reasonably expect any useful reading. (The only steady reading is my head at point blank, 92.5 degrees.) I decide to get impressions with my tape recorder instead.

In the temple’s pitch-black ballroom everyone is crowing about a rocking chair. It moved on its own! The EM Meter is "off the charts," Ed says, "off the charts." I get a word with one of Dale’s team who’s off to the side with a Geiger counter. He’s a limo driver by trade. He tells me the Geiger picks up radiation, but aside from that, he isn’t sure what he’s doing. He tells me they’re not even sure ghosts produce radiation, they’re still exploring that idea. He does know that when the Geiger clicks off more than 3 it’s registered radiation and we’ve clicked 2 just standing here. A distracted psychic whose life I heroically save by pulling her out of the way of the stampede (on its way to see the animate rocker) tells me that her hands feel "tingly" and she thinks maybe she saw some strange shadows up in the balcony. Soon, Antoinette’s lackeys — I now see their function; they are chaperones — herd all the ghost clubbers up yet another floor to the assembly hall. I lag behind and end up sitting on the dais, perched on the throne second to what must be the incumbent worshipful master’s. Though I feel pretty self-conscious, my throne is cushioned, unlike the wooden sauna benches everyone else gets.

Antoinette, elbow on the marble-slab altar in the center floor, like she means to arm-wrestle, dangles a pendulum and asks if we have a spirit in the room. She explains if the pendulum moves forward, it’s nodding; sideways, it’s shaking no. Then the lights go off and we’re left to cook in the dark for about 10 minutes. Antoinette assures us that what’s going on is not a séance. Only a dark room session. A good time, she says, to get answers.

Then I may as well unpack a few questions: What, for instance, would move the pendulum to answer "no" if no spirit were present? Why do all ghosts seem to be wearing Victorian clothing? What is this Merchant Ivory pathology? Isn’t there something openly defiant about using instruments specifically designed for specific scientific and engineering tasks to hunt for something that by its very definition is beyond the realm of ascertainable reality? Why does the "frequency" of an orb make it invisible to the human eye but visible on film? If ghosts feed off electromagnetic radiation, and if paranormal activity is strongest during solar flares and thunderstorms and geomagnetic fields, why then, in the 20th century, where the general hertz of any household probably out-hertzes entire cities of the 18th century, is there not a constant flood of paranormal activity? It seems we would be plagued by ghosts, doesn’t it? Even if Troy is really so discerning, if he really doesn’t subscribe to the "fringe," what are all the psychics and cryptozoologists doing here? Why, after repeated requests, does Troy fail to produce photographs for my perusal? Did Rene really see a psychic puke on a ouija board? Is belief contagious? Does anyone here understand the burden of proof? Does anyone here understand the difference between proof and evidence? If a man dies, shall he live again?

Back on the trolley, we crest the town’s highest peak, Overlook Point, and are gifted with a spectacular view of the Mississippi. It is the night of the lighted regatta. Barges and pleasure boats are dressed with Christmas lights. The dark water spangles emerald and pink from the Alton Belle riverboat casino. The Raynger plunges sub-zero when I point it at the cornmeal-yellow full moon. It is beautiful. I want to take a photograph. But just as I am trying to focus there is a blood-curdling scream.

Two ladies behind us, on their feet, wailing bloody redrum. A sourceless geyser of water bursts down on their heads. And this is the sequence of my thoughts (telescoped and reduced in speed for analysis): The women are plants. Something staged for our bemusement. But then the unfaked terror in the women’s eyes (however enhanced by the paparazzi’s stroboscopic blaze) and the sheer force of the water falling from the roof of the trolley convinces me, momentarily, otherwise. I know I am thinking what everyone else on the bus must be thinking. We have manifestation. Poltergeist! Water Demon! Scooby where are you?! Then sobriety. Aha. The A.C. unit’s water just broke. If anything, the ladies seem grateful for the cool-off.

 

Much later, back at the Stratford, after Rene has concluded her lecture on resonant frequency in the ladies’ room, we trawl the third floor for ghosts. The hallway is pitch-black but the infrared illumines the carpet a vivid, shadowless underwater green. It is completely eerie. Ed and Rene look like zombies. Ed with his hands in his pockets, jangling keys. Rene looking straight at me, wide-eyed expectant. I’m getting nothing. Rene suggests we try something else. She switches on an optional light above the lens. Now Ed is down the hallway with the camera and I’m staring into a very bright light surrounded by the vaporous, telltale halo of halogen. Within seconds Ed says we have orbage. Rene takes the camera. "Omigod, omigod, it’s crawling with orbs!" she exclaims, then quizzes Ed on what he saw while I take a gander. I press my eye to the viewfinder. Within seconds, a few slow blips about the size of brussels sprouts float by haphazardly. Another blimpet appears. Then some blotchies. Rene is practically doing cartwheels. I say wow, and (I’m lying) how amazing. But mostly I just wonder what effect the combination of halogen and infrared might produce.

As we see her to her car (Ed’s got her tripod, I’ve got one of her duffel bags), Rene seems to be taking our lack of responsiveness as overcome wordlessness. For some reason I’m reluctant to ask about the light. (Infrared cameras pick up wavelengths below the visible spectrum. What’s the wavelength frequency of halogen?) But I ask. She doesn’t know if the light on the camera is halogen. She’s just glad we’ve had the experience of a lifetime. "It totally makes my day, you guys. I was so scared you wouldn’t see them." But we did. We did see them, and thank you, and good night.

We spend our last night on the road in Indiana at a motel that abuts a mind-numbingly endless span of corn. After one final buffet-style dinner, we sit on the patio in the humid mealy air, drinking beers, listening to the pizzicato of crickets, staring at the implacable wall of corn, the heat-stroked stalks greenish-pale in the moonlight. I think of Robert Wadlow in his bronze three-piece suit. His 37 1/2 AA brogans. I think of the tallest man in the world and picture him wading through the field, toward us, waist deep, heads above the wispy tassels. I wonder if I could really believe in him without ever having seen him with my own two eyes and easily conclude that, yes, I could. Then I wonder if people used to run the other way when they saw him coming.

If he had ESP.

If he could put bad thoughts in people’s minds.

Jay Kirk is a writer who lives in the Philadelphia area.