Ghosts, Poltergeists & Apparitions > Ghost hunters

Lafayette Theater busted

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Desdemone:
Crouched in a dark, resounding cement room in the basement of the Lafayette Theater, team leader Michael Bonito pulled out his recorder and asked the people in the room to be silent. He was about to measure EVP, an electronic voice phenomenon.

"We are the Indiana Ghost Trackers," he began. "It is July 19, 2003. Is there anyone here who wishes to speak to us?"

Silence.

"What's your name?"

Silence.

"Did you used to work here?"

Silence.

The questioning continued for about five minutes. Silence.

The flashlights came on. Everyone relaxed and headed up to the stage, which was filled with construction equipment.

Two minutes later, Bonito came up.

"Check this out," he said, showing everyone some infrared photos he took. "That could be something."

The Indiana Ghost Trackers are on a hunt, trying to discover if the Lafayette Theater is haunted.

The group, composed of people who enjoy the excitement of finding ghosts, has hunted at other locations, most notably area cemeteries. But the Lafayette Theater is different; it's gone unoccupied for nearly 13 years, save the recently started construction.

Almost no one has been there to hear strange noises or notice odd occurrences.

This is what gets co-director Kris Baker excited.

Baker has been involved with the group for about a year but has been interested in ghosts for much longer.

"Everyone has a story to tell," she said.

Baker's came when she was a child in Canada. Her house looked like a World War I bunker, complete with a sandy basement floor, she said. Many nights she would fall asleep to the sounds of dragging and digging, but there was no evidence any excavation around the house. Sometimes a woman in a green bathrobe would show up and beckon Baker's mother, as if to tell her something, but her mother never came.

Years after they moved out, a developer bought the house to raze it and found a woman buried in the basement. Later, Baker discovered that the woman had been killed by her husband many years before but he had simply reported her missing.

This isn't Baker's only encounter with ghosts.

Her most recent one came at a Crawfordsville, Ind., cemetery.

After settling in the cemetery and taking photos, Baker began another electronic voice phenomenon recording, where, as usual, Baker asked questions to the air and waited for responses.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"I'm Charlie Brooks," the whisper said.

So she went to the library and found that a Charles Brooks was, in fact, buried in that cemetery.

Other group members have had spooky cemetery experiences, too.

Bonito said he once visited a Hawaiian cemetery for children killed in a tsunami. He got an uneasy feeling there, which he attributed to the children's anger.

"I've never felt more unwanted in my life," Bonito said. Upon reviewing his photos from the trip, he noticed large red, blue and even black orbs lurking around the cemetery.

Orbs, he said, represent spirit energy. They influence how people feel in places and often give people weird, uneasy feelings. But, as Baker said, spirits are different than ghosts; ghosts leave energy imprints that "don't follow any sort of normal law — time or space," according to Bonito.

These orbs, among other things, are what the Indiana Ghost Trackers measure. They are careful to distinguish between the orbs and other particles that may be mistaken for orbs; they don't want to be discredited for saying something is an orb when it's really a dust particle or an insect.

"Some stuff we find is questionable," said co-director Baker. "But some is so unexplainable," such as the incident that occurred at around 1:15 a.m. Sunday.

There was a loud bang in the theater, then the six remaining trackers heard something sliding along the floor toward them. The trackers, perplexed, immediately tried to recreate the noise they had heard. They couldn't.

Baker said her "before" photos mirrored her "after" photos; nothing looked different in the area where they heard the sound, ruling out the possibility of the sound being caused by something just falling.

Still, ghost hunting draws skepticism from many, including Baker's husband, who refuses to join the Ghost Trackers.

"He thought I was getting involved in a cult," she said. "But we have normal everyday people … who have a general overall curiosity (in ghosts)."

To combat the skepticism, Baker said the group tries to maintain its professionalism. Members never confirm pictures at the investigation; they don't listen to the EVP data until later. When she goes through her photos, she said she basically tries to disprove the evidence she has gathered.

This way, the Indiana Ghost Trackers don’t get caught up in the moment, she said. It also allows them to go home and compare photos.

"If I take one photo, I take two," Baker said. As a result, she can usually determine if it is merely dust or if it is something else. And for those who think the trackers just "photoshop" the orbs in, Baker counters, "The only thing I do to the photos is change brightness and contrast."

She said that even she wonders about her discoveries, so when people ask her if a place is haunted, she's not going to say "yes" or "no." Baker never swears that something is paranormal.

"But I know what I saw and I know what I heard," she said. "Everyone is entitled to their beliefs. You can't force people to believe what you believe."

Some people Baker has met have changed their beliefs based on her experiences, though.

"(One of my associates) thought I was nuts. Just crazy," she said. Shortly thereafter, Baker traveled to the Attica Hotel on a hunt, took her camcorder and captured heavy breathing noises, even though no one was near the camera.

"I never believed," the associate told Baker, "but after hearing that, I'm a believer."

At least 35 others in the Lafayette area are believers, too. The Lafayette chapter participates in ghost hunts in the area as well as offering free home consultations. If anyone suspects a ghost lives in their home, the ghost trackers are happy to come out and investigate.

But don't expect them to bring brown jumpsuits and proton packs.

"We don't go in and spread the holy water and that kind of stuff," she said. "What they choose to do with the findings is their own business."

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