'The other side'LOCAL GHOST HUNTING GROUPS TAKE TURNS EXPLORING THE UNEXPLAINABLE
“ I’ve got a weird outlook on life, ” Carol Martindale-Taylor admitted.
Who could blame her ?
In 1969, her boyfriend at the time, Dave Alligood, was driving down from Long Beach, Calif., to San Diego to visit her on his 21st birthday. A fatal car accident, though, ended those plans. His death resulted with Martindale-Taylor possessing a paranormal gift: something she refers to as a “death mask.”
On six occasions, the 65-year-old has seen almost a gray, ashen cast of someone’s face. Five of those people died within a few days. The sixth was a prisoner who was left alone after being stabbed, presumably, to death, when Martindale-Taylor worked for a prison management membership organization. Her last such sighting was in 1999.
“I’m waiting for the time when I look in the mirror and see it. It’s like, ‘Oops. Get everything in order, Carol,’” she said with a laugh.
Still …
“I want to see a ghost and I haven’t seen one.”
When she moved to Prairie Grove in May from the Baltimore area, she came across the Web site of a ghost hunting organization based in Northwest Arkansas by the name of Arkansas Paranormal Investigations (API ). She has since gone on three investigations with the group. The practice of ghost hunting has been dated as far back as 100 A. D., but recently cable TV shows such as “Ghost Hunters” and “ Paranormal State” have generated unprecedented exposure and interest all over the world. Arkansas is no exception. “This is the right time of year,” said API founder Alan Silva. “People are more open to it.”
On the hunt Silva, the founder of API, referred to “Ghost Hunters” as “TAPS,” the acronym for The Atlantic Paranormal Society, the group the show’s two main investigators, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, founded while working as Roto-Rooter plumbers in Warwick, R. I.
“TAPS has opened up the eyes of people to not be so locked about this type of stuff,” Silva said. “It used to be you couldn’t talk about [it ].”
Anyone who has watched the show and seen the mobile command center unit loaded down with hightech equipment would have a good idea of the scene next to Silva’s Centerton home. Silva, who said he’s “46 going on 30,” bought the unit three years ago, a year after starting the organization.
“My truck gets nine miles a gallon whenever I’m towing this thing,” Silva said of his Dodge pick-up.
Since forming, about 30 people have been associated with the group at one time or another. Those participants have taken part in more than 45 investigations, some of which took place in Fayetteville and Farmington. The last one happened Oct. 4 at the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium in Booneville partly as a charity event in which patrons paid $25 to tour the facility before an investigation.
About once a month, a group of about four or five API members will investigate, usually by request, either a private home or other venue — at no cost. Silva said most reputable organizations provide their services for free.
“How can you charge for something that you’re trying to prove exists?,” Silva said. “When you charge someone for something, they are expecting results.” When Silva and company first arrive at a site they will first walk through the venue with an EMF (electromagnetic field ) detector to measure any increases in surrounding moving energy. He added that 75 percent of cases are solved due to natural causes. Still, ghost hunters routinely point to scientific data that proves that the human brain emits electrical impulses instantly upon death.
“As soon as I heard that I thought, ‘That’s it.’ That’s why some people can pick up on these things and other people can’t, ”Martindale-Taylor said. If the problem cannot be solved through the walkthrough, then Silva installs a maximum of four cameras, some of which are infrared, looking for anything out of the ordinary such as a glowing ball of energy called an orb. The crew, armed with flashlights and other gadgets, including recording equipment to pick up any EMPs (electronic voice phenomena), thought to be the audible responses of the spirits themselves after being asked a series of simple questions, will spend from about 10 p. m. to 3 a. m. in the pitch black. The footage of all cameras and devices, which usually runs from 30 to 40 hours, is then carefully played back. After the process is over, Silva will submit a DVD to the owner of the building with all of his group’s findings. “A lot of folks think that it’s all non-stop action like on TAPS where there’s something always happening and, the truth is, there’s an awful lot of watching the grass grow. … You’ve got to be very patient,” Silva said.
‘Plain as day’ — dark as night Silva, who works with the computer security systems for Wal-Mart, said his group has about 70 to 80 pieces of equipment valued at a total of $ 20,000, most of which he purchased. He has a come long way from starting paranormal pursuits 16 years ago with a compass, a thermometer and a cassette tape. Back then, Silva was still coming to grips with the death of his 18-year old younger brother, Keith, while coincidentally living in San Diego as well. “I often felt and was told by others that were supposedly sensitive [to spirits ] that he was around me,” he said, “and so I’ve been searching ever since trying to figure out if there’s life after [death ] that we can detect or measure via scientific instruments. “ It was one of those things where death was something that happened to other people. … [Keith’s death ] really brought it home. You know what ? This happens. This really happens. And so it just made me really wonder about the other side.” One of Silva’s first actions was taking the ghost tour at the Whaley House in San Diego, considered to be one of the country’s most haunted buildings with many books and Web sites alike devoted to its lore. While on the tour, he heard a tune playing from an antique music box. He figured the music was being piped in to add the effect of wide-eyed tourists. The music box belonged to the lady of the house, Anna Whaley, who was said to always have enjoyed its sound — in the late 19th Century.
“I just went on my business and then I started reading book upon book about it and that was one of the claims was that people heard that music,” Silva said. “I was like ‘Son of a gun, I had that experience and I didn’t realize it.’”
Silva estimated there are at least six other fellow reputable groups in Arkansas. One such organization is the Spirit Seekers Paranormal Investigation Research & Intervention Team (SPIRIT ), a team based in Roland that became the fancy of many news outlets after the group conducted an investigation on the Arkansas State Capitol in July.
The group is also led by an Alan, but one with the last name of Lowe, who has a story — apparently — literally out of this world. About 15 years ago, his wife, Angela, tried to convince him that spirits lived in their home. He kept casting her certitude aside until one night she woke him up and instructed him to sit on the couch in his living room. He then saw two spirits arguing; a man on his left, a women to his right.
“It was plain as day, ”the 55-year-old Lowe said.“ I reached over and flipped on my light real quick, thinking [his wife ] was playing a joke and the room was empty. That got me wondering for sure.”
Lowe’s group has gone on about 60 investigations since it was formed in the latter part of 2002. Unlike API, though, the group uses other unscientific means in addition to the standard equipment, namely the psychic abilities of his wife. Lowe went on to say that in the realm of contacting spirits — the majority of which are usually friendly — there are three categories: sensitives, who can feel a spirit’s presence; psychics, who can tell if a spirit is there and its gender but cannot converse; and mediums, a rare breed who can converse with the unknown entities. The organization’s leader is well aware of the criticism his wife and other psychics face. He himself dished it out in the earlier years. “I’m still skeptical, I can’t help it,” Lowe said. “It’s just hard to understand. I don’t see it or do it. I have hard time understanding, but I believe her because she’s been proven right so many times.”
Down the road Lowe’s organization will be at the Prairie Grove Battlefield Park on Dec. 6-7 during the 100 th anniversary of the Battle of Prairie Grove Re-enactment. The group has been up there on two previous occasions, the last of which was in February 2005 when members picked up the presence of two spirits living in the famed Borden House. Lowe said his organization plans to spend most of his time in the orchard behind the house where a field hospital once stood. Silva, whose group was to conduct an investigation at the American Legion building in downtown Bentonville this past Saturday, is trying to gain access to the park early next year. He also hopes to investigate the Historic Washington County Courthouse, a venue that has been checked out before by other regional ghost hunters. They, too, more than likely had to weather the criticism of skeptics who still claim that any evidence gathered is scientifically untestable — no matter what.
“If you want to listen to those EVPs, those voice recordings … and say it was faked, there’s nothing you can do to convince anybody,” Martindale-Taylor said. “I think some people, the only way they are ever going to believe it is if they have their own experience.”
“I would much rather have a skeptic on my team than somebody that believes that they know it all because they’re going to be the ones to keep the rest of us in check,” Silva added. “And so we value people being skeptics. We don’t value people that are close-minded.”
They also value any evidence, whatsoever, of the paranormal.
Footage of “30 seconds worth of something that you can’t explain,” Silva said “just fuels the fire. That’s just icing on the cake and makes you want to do it that much more.”
Lowe concurred.
“If you’ve seen it, felt it,” he said, “you’ve got that driving force to find out more.”
