Grave Matters-Syracuse New Times 10/01
Grave Matters

CNY Ghost Hunters Society prowls haunted houses and
more

By Eric Rezsnyak

They don't tool around in a refurbished antique ambulance with an amusing cartoon logo, nor do they have proton packs or a gelatinous, fluorescent ghoul as a charming sidekick.

"I hate that Hollywood stuff," says Stacey Jones of the Ghostbusters-inspired stereotypes that haunt her 2-year-old group, the Central New York Ghost Hunters Society. "Don't get me wrong, I loved the movie. But it's comedy."

Ghosts may or may not exist, but the search for proof is enough motivation for the group, whose 15 members share an interest in the paranormal and a desire to investigate occurrences in and around Syracuse. They trek through graveyards, public landmarks, homes and businesses in search of things that go bump in the night.

Their current project is O'Connor's Alexander Hamilton Inn in Clinton. The -per-night bed-and-breakfast is renowned for sumptuous dining, a classically decadent atmosphere and whimsical guests. According to owner Patrick O'Connor, the 1820s-era building hosts several active spirits, most notably a little girl who peers through the sliding doors between the dining and sitting rooms. These otherworldly squatters have never bothered anyone, O'Connor says, and the staff is all fairly comfortable with the extra residents. His biggest fear, in fact, is not being able to land his b'n'b on Unsolved Mysteries, which he and the CNY Ghost Hunters are trying to do.

Jones contacted O'Connor after hearing local lore about the inn, and has made several trips with her crew to record paranormal activities there. On one early October visit she was accompanied by a half-dozen members who examined the basement bar with their tools of the trade: heat meters, which fluctuate wildly in the presence of the supernatural; electromagnetic field meters that pick up strange charges when ghosts are allegedly present; and digital or disposable cameras.

The most instantly curious results come from the infrared video camera Jones purchased on the Internet for about (she has spent more than ,000 of her own money on equipment, she says). Blurry white balls, called orbs, can be seen zipping across the room in all directions, some blinking in and out of existence for no apparent reason.

Cynics counter that they're merely seeing dust. But the ghost hunters, who use the most basic equipment possible in order to safeguard against claims of technological manipulation, think it's something. They don't know for sure, however.

"I tell people that if they told us what we're getting definitely aren't ghosts or definitely are ghosts, one way or the other, I wouldn't do it anymore," Jones says. "It's the chase, the hunt. I'm not a 100 percent total believer in this. I believe people are interacting with something, I'm just not sure it's ghosts."


Child's Play

Jones says she has been interested in the paranormal since childhood. Her mother would tell stories about seeing her own father after he died, and Jones' father, a forest ranger, related stories about a haunted cabin he'd once stayed in. "I really just started reading about it, and I discovered that it transcended every culture and religion; they all believed in some kind of spirits," she says. "By the time I was 12 I had read about 500 books."

Even then she was eager to investigate supposedly haunted homes in Pine Bush, N.Y., where she lived, but at that time no instruments were available to document anything. She did, however, take a road trip to break into the legendary house that inspired the novel and 1979 film The Amityville Horror for fun. She didn't see anything spooky.

After moving to Central New York more than 15 years ago, Jones' paranormal interests caught up with her, and she started exploring local graveyards and historic places. "Up here there's more history than on the outskirts of New York City," says Jones, who has held numerous law-enforcement jobs but now works in a doctor's office. Media coverage brought her some notoriety and connected her with others with similar interests, including claims adjuster Lynette Pirong, the Ghost Hunters' second-in-command, who also has a lifelong interest in the supernatural and encountered strange phenomena surrounding the death of her father.

The group records supernatural activity in several ways. Pirong is the designated picture-taker. "I'm pretty lucky with the digital camera," she says. "If I don't have that, I'm armed with my Kodak Advantage."

Some of her more memorable photos, from a Central Square cemetery, show 150 orbs in brilliant colors. Another, from a vandalized Oakwood Cemetery mausoleum, also displays orbs by the hundreds. "It was a totally dark room, no light," she says. "I don't have any other explanation for it."

In addition to orbs, the most common phenomenon the group has caught on film is what members refer to as ectoplasm: a mist that often can't be seen with the naked eye, but that can be seen on film afterward and behaves in strange ways.

Apparitions are more difficult to capture visually. "They're very rare," Jones says, adding that she's never seen one. But Pirong has, on a visit to the abandoned Herkimer County Jail. She watched with several other members of the group as what they assume was a guard from the prison materialized and then flickered in and out of existence.

"I was shocked; I couldn't move," Pirong says. "You go on these excursions to see this, but when you see it, it scares you to death."
That was one of the few occasions when Pirong has been scared; another was in Oakwood Cemetery. "I get scared when I need to be, when there's evil present," she explains.

Another of the group's members, Art Sochia, had a similarly creepy experience in the jail. Fellow member and wife, Chris Sochia, says that as he walked through the completely concrete halls he continually saw his reflection in his peripheral vision, despite a lack of mirrors.

Jones has only really been uncomfortable once, when she visited a bed-and-breakfast in
Cooperstown more than a year ago at the owners' request. "There were a lot of red flags about what she was explaining," Jones says. During her brief investigation she experienced mostly auditory phenomena, such as knocking on windowpanes that were boarded from the outside. After Jones left, the owner informed her, the ghosts became extremely agitated at the intrusion (a common side effect), and she had to leave the building when sounds flooded in of things breaking. As the owner
watched from her truck, Jones says, she could see lights go on and off, and shadows moving around the empty structure.

That type of situation is out of the CNY Ghost Hunters Society's league, Jones admits, and when she encounters potentially malicious entities she puts the homeowner in touch with Ed and Lorraine Warren, Connecticut-based investigators whom she refers to as "the gods of ghost hunting." After being involved in the field for decades, the Warrens, whom Jones considers friends, can handle tougher cases and possibly work to remove a ghost from the premises.


Blithe Spirits

Exorcising ghosts is not part of the Ghost Hunters Society's mission; they simply want to see if they're present. "I can't get rid of them, because that's not what we do," Jones says. "That's one thing a lot of ghost hunters have a problem with. They want to fix it. But when you have an {evil} atmosphere like that, you shouldn't even try. You can ruin people's lives."

That doesn't stop homeowners from asking them for help, however. "It's a validation thing for them, more than us," Jones says. "When I first started doing this I felt incomplete, I felt I needed to be doing more for these people. But you can't really follow it through to the end. They might want {something final}, but they're not going to get it."

But not everybody wants to get rid of ghosts. "Lots of people ask, 'You're not going to get rid of them, are you?'" she says. "To many, they're a part of the family. They're like 2-year-old children who just want attention. And once they get it, they're OK. Most are just whimsical." Most supernatural encounters for Jones and her group were nothing to be scared about. But many people are afraid, more to admit they might have a ghost than they are of the actual spirit, Jones
says. People in more staid communities tend to be particularly close-mouthed. "In Skaneateles we have houses that date back to the 1800s, but people don't talk about ghosts," she observes.

Jones claims everyone has a ghost story, but only 50 percent of people believe in them. "It's the Western mind," she says. "We try to rationalize everything we can't explain. We'll turn it off and try to fit the pieces together into something else. But there's just so much out there, how can it be?
How can you explain it?" While skeptics are plentiful, Jones and her group shrug them off. "The first reaction you get from people who find out what we do is, 'Oh, well, that's interesting,'" she says. At a recent fund-raising event to which they invited the public at the allegedly haunted Beardslee Castle in Little Falls, "you have people giggling and tee-heeing," she says. "And I just think, 'OK... you're here because this isa haunted castle. And you're laughing at the idea of ghosts?' It's a tough situation to handle, but you
just let it roll off your back."

"They get under my skin," Pirong admits. "If you don't believe, that's fine. But don't sit there and act like I'm doing something wrong. I'm not. I do what I want to do. And if I believe, it's because I have a lot of evidence to believe in."

Sometimes Pirong turns the friction to her advantage. "Skeptics try to rip everything apart, but I've gone toe to toe with them," she says. "I pull out my photo album and challenge them to explain what {else} it could be."

But skepticism is something of a virtue for the group. Jones makes sure that her members won't blindly believe every creepy coincidence. Her ghost hunters must be serious; before joining, potential members must sign a form that details the group's rules. "I'm very protective about this group," Jones says. Her strict guidelines for on-site behavior, which were recently overhauled, have caused defections. "Some of the people didn't like the way we did things and went out and started their own groups. That's fine, let them be on their own. But this is my group and has my name on it, and I'm going to take care of it."

CNY Ghost Hunters still welcomes new members, but Jones says the initiation process is more rigorous now. In addition to the annual membership fee (which goes toward maintaining the Web site, www.gotghosts.org), potential ghost hunters will now be screened via interviews. "Before it was very open, just based on attendance to meetings," Jones says. "But I basically want to see if people are on the up and up."

If they pass, new members can attend monthly meetings and go on training sessions in graveyards and other public places. "Then, depending on their interest and if they'll keep up with it, I might invite them to investigate a private home," she adds.

Jones realizes that not everyone will devote as much time and commitment to the group as she does. "Members have another life, and I respect that," she says. "This is a hobby, and family and jobs come first. We don't go into debt for our hobbies. We don't mess up our lives for our hobby."
But she warns people interested in joining that the group might not be what they think. "Lots of people drop out of it because they expect The Haunting and stuff," she says. "They want to see things, watch stuff fly over their faces. But ghosts don't do parlor tricks."

Even so, they still make for an interesting night out. "We're just a group of people who get together and do this for fun," Pirong says.

Jones will continue to lead the CNY Ghost Hunters Society for at least several more years before moving south, she says. She's hoping to be invited to investigate more local haunts and perhaps gather enough information to write a book about them. "Sometimes I do get sick of it," the Sunday-school teacher admits. "I get tired of the personalities real quick. But I love ghosts more than the people."

To learn more about the Central New York Ghost Hunters Society and enjoy a good meal, attend its fund-raiser on Saturday, Oct. 27, 6:30 p.m., at O'Connor's Alexander Hamilton Inn, 21 West Park Row, Clinton. For per person, participants receive full dinner, presentation of the group's evidence and a ghost hunt. Reservations required; call 853-2061 or e-mail hauntedcny@localnet.com.