I ain't afraid of no ghosts

By Chris Jones
The Chronicle

Ever wonder if there’s life after death? Are there souls of the after life still roaming the earth, and if so, why can’t they just rest in peace? Well the Paranormal Seekers are here and they’re seeking the same answers. At the Oshawa Public Library, Jess Hann Branch, the seekers talked to a group of people about what they do and shared stories of encounters.

Rachel (the founder) who didn’t want her last name printed, started this non-profit organization in 2004 with Jay, who also didn’t want his last name printed. Since they started, they have been to historical sights in the Durham Region, Hamilton, and Kingston.

The organization started from Rachel’s interest in history.

“I was always interested in the history of Durham Region and paranormals since childhood,” she said. “This inspired me to start this organization.”

There are eight people in this team of paranormal seekers: The founder Rachel; co-founder Jay; Crystal; a medium (psychic); Amanda, a medium/web designer; Jeff, an infrared camera specialist; Donny, the equipment operator; Paula, the ultrasonic equipment operator; and newest member Ron, a medium.

Members of the non-profit organization didn’t want their last names published because “we don’t want anyone calling us up and telling us we’re crazy,” said Jay.

Before going on their expeditions, Rachel will research the history on the locations.

“Every time we go out I research the former owners, current owners, see if there were any deaths within the location, look for previous sightings of paranormal activity,” she said. “We will get full permission before we go. We won’t go anywhere if we’re not allowed to go. We won’t hop fences or trespass unless we have full permission.”

Once the destination is picked out, they’ll gather their equipment, make sure they get enough sleep because they pull all-nighters and get prepared to contact souls of the dead.

Their equipment consists of a digital audio recorder, digital thermometer, infrared camera, ultrasonic equipment (which receives 100,000 PERTs/second, said Paula), digital cameras, and, according to Jay, the best tool for hunting ghosts, camcorders.

“Visual evidence is always better than audio. Another good tool for hunting ghosts is a 35-mm camera because bodies or objects come in with more detail,” Jay said. “Digital cameras work pretty good too because we can zoom up on them on our computer and see if there’s a ghost there or if it’s a hoax.”

Once they get all their equipment set up, they’ll take a quiet time to let the equipment do its job. Eventually they’ll start walking around with their recorders and cameras and try to find activities themselves.

One of the more intriguing stories happened in Oshawa at Ghost Road, located down by the Oshawa lakefront near the Minacs building.

“We have received a lot of activity down there. It used to be a native burial ground,” said Rachel, who still goes back there to this day to pick up on more paranormal activity. “When they decided to build the trails, they dug up the bodies and moved them.

The first time we went down there Amanda picked up something by a tree on a young woman who was murdered. She had long brown hair, wearing a T-shirt tucked into her pants. We believed she was raped a long time ago.”

“The next time we went out, it was night time. As we walked through the trail, we felt like someone was following us. I turned around and shined my flashlight in his face. He immediately looked down. We noticed he was smoking a cigarette, but we couldn’t recall a scent. We saw him walking away after that, we looked back, and he seemed to have vanished.”

“The next time we saw him, it rained the day before so the ground was pretty muddy. We saw him on an older blue bike, looking at that tree where Amanda picked up something on that women who was raped. Once he noticed us, he rode off. When we went over to the tree, we didn’t see any bike tracks.”

Rachel and her team think the guy on the bike raped and killed the brown-haired girl.

Other places they’ve been include The Parkwood Estate, Old Whitby Psychiatric Hospital, Bowmanville Museum.

Every sighting they’ve come across is on their website www.paranormalseekers.org.