Bay Area ghost hunting group goes looking for spirits in Aptos home
Halloween may be over, but for the dedicated individuals of the NorCal Paranormal Investigators, the ghost and ghoul sightings continue. Founded by Doug Carnahan and Shane Thornton, the seven-member team investigates, free of charge, reports of hauntings and other paranormal activity in the Bay Area and beyond. While each of them has an ordinary career by day, in their free time they are focused on finding concrete evidence of life after death and other supernatural phenomena. Their mission, as explained by case manager Bridget LaFont, is to both calm frightened residents and document paranormal activity in the process. “Our main goal is to document and research,” LaFont says. “We want to get real evidence, scientific evidence with equipment.”
On a foggy October evening, the NPI were in Aptos, performing an investigation at the home of a woman who suspects she’s being haunted by one or more deceased relatives. The homeowner (who asked to remain anonymous) doesn’t seem especially bothered by the idea of living in a haunted house, and explains that the activity has been mostly benign: she hears the shuffle of a pair of slippers or the sound of laughter, even though the relative that these sounds recall has been dead for years. Toys also seem to turn on and off by themselves, her two cats are unusually ill at ease, and there have been strange, apparently inexplicable smells, sounds, and cold areas (which paranormal believers argue are a sign of ghostly activity) in the house. But, she says that compared to her past experiences, these occurrences are relatively minor. In a previous residence, she believes she was the target of a malevolent spirit which set the burners on the stove to full-blast while no one was home, shook the bed as she sat on it, and caused several disturbing apparitions to appear, including a hand creeping out from under the bed in the middle of the night and a demonic-looking image resembling the Virgin Mary. She’d like objective evidence that the things she’s experienced in this house are not just her imagination, but she’s also comfortable being there alone, and feels confident that the spirits, if they exist, mean her no harm. This is fairly common, explains the group’s tech manager, Albert De La Cruz, “A lot of the people that we’ve been investigating aren’t bothered by these spirits. They’re just curious. ”
 As the group arrives at the residence and sets up for the night, it becomes clear that ghost hunting is no low-tech affair. An array of sophisticated electronic equipment is used in investigations, including electromagnetic field detectors (these fields, which are produced by virtually every electronic device, are also believed by paranormal investigators to be, in some cases, produced by spirits), tape recorders, digital thermometers, and a night-vision camera.
The NPI is a registered small business; as such, they were able to take out a large loan to buy these tools, which they are slowly paying back through their website, where they sell subscriptions to their newsletter and copies of a DVD about a previous investigation. Besides the electronics, they also use other, less conventional methods: Thornton is not psychic, but, in his words, he is “sensitive” to paranormal phenomena in a way most people aren’t. “My light is on,” he explains, “Everyone has intuition, but some use it better than others.” Since childhood, he says he’s been aware of shadows, apparitions, and other unusual occurrences; more recently, he’s been trying to use this awareness as a tool for paranormal research (though he, and other members of the NPI, caution against supposed psychics who claim to be able to talk to dead loved ones and charge for their services). The group also relies on the impressions of team member Lisa Carmody, who is profoundly deaf. They believe that her hearing loss makes her other senses sharper and more attuned, and everyone pays close attention to her assessments.
Throughout the investigation, team members head out in groups of two or three to several areas of the house where the activity is supposedly centered, while the rest stay behind at a base camp in the kitchen and dining room, watching those same rooms on a monitor. Team members on duty test for unusually high electromagnetic fields, and set up tape recorders to catch evidence of Electronic Voice Phenomena, or EVP (paranormal researchers claim that voices of spirits can sometimes be heard when playing back a tape, even if nothing is audible at the time the tape is recorded). They repeatedly address the theoretical departed aloud, asking for signs of their presence. Though nothing is immediately apparent to an outside observer, several team members say they feel a presence. They theorize that a spirit may inhabit the house, but is not strong enough to be recorded on any of their equipment.
The team continues their investigation late into the night, fueled by liberal amounts of coffee, soda, and peanut M&Ms. The atmosphere is focused but friendly, with off-duty team members chatting quietly about weddings (three NPI members are getting married soon, two to one another) and previous investigations. Inside the areas being investigated, the mood is often distinctly creepy. One could attribute this to a ghostly presence, while a skeptic might point out that standing in pitch-dark, ice-cold rooms talking about dead people could in and of itself lead to some uneasy feelings. At any rate, the NPI decide to call it quits around 1 a.m, after five hours of work. Several team members saw and felt things that leave them convinced that the house is haunted: random EMF spikes, sudden temperature drops, and several strange noises in the garage, among others. However, they know that nothing they uncovered would stand up as hard evidence to a doubting observer. But the investigation isn’t over; they still have hours of tape recorder and video footage to comb through, looking and listening for any hint of ghostly figures or voices. As far as the NPI are concerned, the truth is out there, and one day they’ll have the ghostly evidence to prove it.
For information about the NorCal Paranormal Investigators, visit norcalghosthunters.com .
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