The ghost hunters moved carefully through the basement, probing corners and ceiling joists for stray energy that might signal the presence of some otherworldly spirit.
Their electromagnetic field detector beeped wildly as they explored the wine cellar of the Newcastle Publick House – home to Myrtle, the restaurant’s resident spook.
Some of the beeping is just stray electricity from the walls, but in a few spots, there are pockets that Lead Paranormal Investigator Jim Williams can’t readily explain away.
Williams and Investigator Adam Lanson were invited into the basement of the Publick House along with the rest of a Haunted History Tour of Damariscotta on Aug. 31.
“We go into every investigation trying to show that there’s nothing going on,” Williams said at the start of the tour. “You can trace a lot of ghost activity back to bad wiring, but sometimes there are things happening that can’t be explained.”
The two investigators are members of the Maine Ghost Hunters Society, a non-profit organization that investigates hauntings throughout the state for free. There are five core members in the Ghost Hunters Society and 10 alternates, who are sent on location to test – as scientifically as they can – for paranormal activity.
About two months ago, Williams was called into a solidly built, 10-year-old house. The owners reported doors closing, lights flickering and other typical complaints associated with haunted houses.
Williams brought in all the usual ghost hunting tools, equipment that can be found at any home electronics store, Williams said. They use an EMF detector, digital camera, and a digital voice recorder. The only item they use that might be harder to come by is a set of night-vision goggles.
However, when Williams got there, the doors were too heavy to be closing from the wind and the wiring throughout the house was perfectly installed.
The team set up voice recorders in several rooms and Williams met with the homeowners in the bathroom, where they said a lot of the activity was centered.
“During the interview, there was a cup sitting on the rim of the bathtub,” Williams said. “That cup flew across the room and slammed into the wall, twice.”
When the ghost hunters went back and listened to the voice recordings, “it was a lot of really nasty, foul language,” Williams said. “There was something there that was not happy.”
As they moved around downtown Damariscotta with the Haunted History Tour, the ghost hunters took readings and snapped photographs.
Although they were not able to conduct their investigation with the usual thoroughness, their presence on the tour gave them a chance to teach people about what they do and how their investigations work.
“It’s not like the television shows,” Lanson told the group at the start of the tour. “We have simple equipment and don’t do a lot of screaming, ‘What was that!'”
The investigators said that they have mixed feelings about the recent popularity of ghost hunting TV shows. They feel that the shows give people a false impression of how real ghost hunters operate.
“Some people are disappointed when we don’t roll up in a van decked out with electronic equipment,” Williams said. “They think we’re not as capable.”
On the other hand, those television shows have brought ghost hunting to the public’s attention, and over-dramatized or not, for many people the shows have given some legitimacy to evidence-based ghost hunting, Williams said.
Patrons of the tour were interested to hear what the investigators thought about their local haunts, such as King Eider’s, the Day Block and the Lincoln Theater. On the tour, the investigators could not provide instant feedback, but assured patrons that once it was processed, their evidence would be posted to their website, www.maineghosts.org.
Haunted History Tours offers lantern-lit, haunt-centric walking tours of Camden, Damariscotta, Wiscasset, Boothbay Harbor and Bath.
Several Haunted History Tour regulars took the tour with the ghost hunters and said that it added a new element to the experience.
“It was great to have them, and I can’t wait to see what they turned up,” said Boothbay resident Sylvia Asbury. She and her friend Londa Dunbar, also of Boothbay, have taken the tours many times in several towns.
Ghost hunters or not, the pair keeps coming back because the tours are a lot of fun, they both agreed.
“It’s great way to learn about the history of the towns,” Dunbar said.
The ghost hunters will be participating in several Haunted History Tours this fall. The next tour is scheduled for Fri. Sept. 10 in Boothbay Harbor. For a complete tour schedule, call Haunted History Tours at 380-3806 or go online to www.RedCloakHauntedHistoryTours.com.
For more information on the Maine Ghost Hunters Society, call 313-1974 or go online to www.maineghosts.com.
