HAUNTED By Spirits
Ghost hunters search for spooks ... and explanations
Sarah Jackson sajackso@olympia.gannett.com
The Olympian, Olympia Washington Saturday, October 5, 2002

Keith Age, 39, founder of the Louisville Ghost Hunters Society, has spent 20 years investigating the paranormal but says he's never seen a ghost. It's just not fair. Troy Taylor has only seen one ghost --as best he can tell -- and he wasn't at all interested in busting it. But you know the media. So lazy.

"You get tired of every article coming out saying, 'He ain't afraid of no ghost,'" says Taylor. "Or how many times can they say, 'Who you gonna call?'"

Taylor's singular sighting occurred during the summer of 2001. As one of the nation's leading explorers of the paranormal, Taylor had been drawn to a barn in northern Indiana that the locals claim is haunted.

The vast majority of the time, that's going to mean strange sounds, doors slamming or inexplicable chills. If Casper were to show up on Jay Leno, then there wouldn't be much "para" left in paranormal.

"We're not looking for ghosts," explains Taylor, seeming to contradict his very reason for being. "We're looking for a natural explanation for what you're seeing or hearing. Ninety percent of the cases we've investigated don't turn out to be ghosts."

Skepticism is a requirement, but it's pretty hard to resist the lure of a haunted barn when you're the president of the American Ghost Society and have written 25 books on the subject.

"We sat in that barn for hours. It was pitch black and hot as blazes," he recalls. "Through the locked door of the barn comes this white light -- glaringly white, brighter than any flashlight than I have ever seen -- and it's about a foot wide by 31/2 feet tall. It lit up everything inside the barn."

Then it got really spooky.

"It started moving from one end of the barn to the other," he says. "It went through the solid walls of the horse stalls at the speed of a quick walk. The whole thing took about 20 seconds." Naturally, he took lots of pictures?

"That's how the story ends," he says, embarrassed. "No pictures! After 20 years of being a ghost hunter, I sat there with my mouth open and watched it go by."

He doesn't much care whether you believe this story or not. He's long past that point.

"I don't worry too much about that," he says from his home in Alton, Ill. "You don't have to believe in it for it to be something that I will continue to investigate and pursue. I'm looking more for evidence for myself than for others. I don't have an agenda."

What he does have is a successful career as an authority on the paranormal, which simply means anything that science can't explain.

'Everybody's got their opinions' In addition to his own books -- the latest, "Confessions of a Ghost Hunter," is due out this month -- his Whitechapel Press publishes several other authors in the genre. Meanwhile, Taylor's bookstore, The History & Hauntings Book Co., is a mecca for kindred spirits.

A hunter of ghosts since his late teens, 35-year-old Taylor says interest in spooks, specters and other spiritual what-not is greater than ever. He thinks it might have something to do with society's increasing fascination with the unexplained -- reflected in such shows as "The X-Files" -- and an increasing tolerance for the bizarre and eccentric.

"If you told someone in the 1960s that you believe in ghosts, think of what they would have said about you," says Keith Age, founder of the Louisville (Ky.) Ghost Hunters Society. "You wouldn't have gone around telling people that."

Like Taylor, Age says it helps when you just don't care what the nonbelievers think.

"Everybody's got their opinions," he says. "That's never going to change." Age, 39, has been investigating the unexplained for 20 years. As if to bolster his bona fides, he says he has never seen a ghost. And like Taylor, this isn't "Scooby-Doo" here. Age isn't trying to rid your life of spooks -- that's your problem. All he's looking for is evidence.

He's seen strange things, like shadows that dance in the corner of his eye, and felt cold spots in homes that should be as warm as toast. He even dated a girl whose family claimed their home was inhabited by spirits. "But have I ever seen a ghost? Never," he says. "I've seen strange things, but I've never seen a ghost. Some people claim they have seen one, but, to quote one of our members, 'Until I see Satan tap-dancing on the table with the top hat ...' "

It might seem ironic, but Age says a hardcore ghost hunter is more skeptical than most people. "I've never said any place is 'haunted' -- that's a word I will not use," he says. "Now as far as paranormal activity, there is a lot of it up there."

Not being an exact or even widely recognized science, paranormal investigation doesn't have much in the way of tools. Hunters such as Age invest in devices that measure electromagnetic energy on the belief that spirits generate energy that can be measured, and in fancy thermometers that can pinpoint the temperature variations in a room, another supposed indicator of ghostly activity. A good camera is a must, for ghosts are sometimes spotted on the film after evading the naked eye.

Age scoffs at those who think this is all about Ouija boards and seances. "I'm probably the most skeptical person there is," claims Age. "It takes a lot to convince me. Not everything is paranormal. A lot of times there is a reason for something."

Ghosts, says Taylor, don't always hang out in spooky old asylums and American Indian burial grounds. That, he says, is simply society's mythmakers and yarn-spinners at work. The reality is more complicated.

"You'd be surprised," he says. "I get people who will contact me about ghost sightings in brand new homes in brand new subdivisions. I hear about strange things happening in pizza places, airports, shopping malls. On the other hand, just because somebody died violently somewhere doesn't mean that their spirit is hanging around there."

Nor does Taylor seem too keen on folks whose minds might be a little too open. "I hear people saying all the time that ghosts are everywhere," he says. "Well, they're not. Because if they were, they would be a lot easier to find."