Paranormal possibilities: Are they real?

The last day of October each year brings about Halloween and with it comes thoughts for many of ghosts, goblins and things that go bump in the night.
But some don’t wait for Oct. 31 to think about the possibility of paranormals; some investigate those possibilities year round.
“It’s funny to us, we have never been on a ‘good’ investigation during October,” Tonya Hacker, paranormal researcher for Ghost Haunts of Oklahoma and Urban Legends Investigations, said. “Our best cases are all year around. I have noticed the spring months seem to offer more unexplainable activity.”
Hacker said she is not a “ghost hunter” but she does “research claims of unexplainable and assumed ghostly activity” and has done so for the past 11 years.
“I watched a lot of Scooby Doo as a child,” Hacker said. “That got me started. I don’t have a story like most — I was not born on an Indian burial ground or anything like that — later, as an adult, I lived in a house that pushed me into researching ‘claims’ and unnatural phenomenon.”
The investigations Hacker and her team of 10 conduct are not daily or even weekly and they are not like what is commonly seen on television programs or in the movies, she said.
“We get about three to four legitimate claims per year,” she said. “A lot of people ‘want to be haunted’ but very rarely are there true claims. We do not have a telephone hotline like on the movie ‘Ghostbusters.’ Teams that are overly busy, they take cases that are probably not legitimate.”
Hacker said her team uses some very simple tools to investigate claims that make their way to the group, but the first tools are communication and research.
“We talk to them over the phone,” she said. “If we feel there is a need for an investigation, we visit them ... We offer sound common sense advice to our clients and most do not require a full investigation; they just need a listening ear. We are not the type of team that shows up in matching T-shirts, magnets on our cars and luggage full of gadgets.”
Hacker said her team is very discreet and that they try not to stigmatize property values, so they rarely investigate homes. They also refrain from posting their findings on the Internet to protect the privacy of their clients.
“We utilize a psychological approach to investigating,” Hacker said. “Second, we utilize a historical approach and third, we use a common sense approach. No matter how ‘spooky’ a building looks on the outside, we do not go in assuming it’s haunted. We are one of the few teams in the state that offers a true, unbiased opinion about properties.”
But the team does their work more as a hobby and “not as a lifestyle.”
“We are not scientists; we are a group of people that have knowledge, patience and experience when it comes to supernatural claims,” she said. “We do not use gizmos and gadgets to offer the illusion of science. We are real people working with real people. I work full time; I write and research as much as time allows; and I go out and explore, photograph and investigate on weekends.”
While GHOULI does review photographs, audio and video, they do not conduct “occult-based services, clearings or anything of the sort.”
“We seek the truth, we do not want to create nightmares for people,” Hacker said. “What we do is not ‘scary’ and we do not want to make property owners afraid. It’s only scary when bad ghost hunting teams label it that way.”
Terry Forrest, Prague, said she isn’t scared by the thought of ghosts as she doesn’t believe in them at all.
“I think it’s absurd,” she said. “What you see is what you get — roller coasters, scary movies, it all goes in the same basket. I think they’re only there if you want them to be. If you get all scared and worked up about it like that, you limit yourself.”
A Harrah resident who preferred not to give his name because of the company he works with, said he doesn’t see the belief as limiting, but as a part of faith.
“I’d have to say if you believe in God, you’d have to believe. Angels ... Aren’t they paranormal?”
Gabriel Rose, Tecumseh, agreed somewhat with Forrest and the Harrah man but said he is not 100 percent sure whether ghosts are real or not.
“I kind of do believe there might be ghosts, but not really,” Rose said. “I’d have to experience it for myself.”
Experiencing something unexplainable is something Hacker said she has done.
“I was standing in a hallway of a historical hotel and we were not happy with how the investigation was going,” Hacker said. “We were pretty annoyed. Out of nowhere, a little boy appeared in the hallway. He stood and stared at us. We looked at each other, me and the man with me, and we were shocked as to what we saw. It was totally unexpected and still gives me chills to this day.”
Hacker said that seeing for oneself is the only real evidence of paranormals for anyone, in spite of all the technology that some teams claim can provide proof.
“There is no true ‘evidence’ of ghosts,” she said. “Personal experience is the most overlooked piece of evidence out there.”