Ghost Hunting: UNR students take a scientific approach to real haunted houses
From left, Sean O’Callaghan, Mike McLoughlin and Jacob Tipp check their computer after it acted strangely.
A frigid breeze flows through the 19th-century Pony Express station and is accompanied by an assortment of creaks and thumps. Then the lights go out. It’s midnight and the cows outside moo in response to the howling of coyotes in the distance. Three men sit, spread across the recently renovated rooms upstairs. Most men would try to fix the lights. Most men would leave the spooky structure and head for more welcoming pastures. But these men aren’t like most. These men get their kicks from the creepy and unexplainable. These three men are the founders of the Nevada Student Paranormal Investigation (NSPI)
BORN FROM BOREDOM
Rewind to 2007, when the group first started in Las Vegas. Out of pure boredom, Sean O’Callaghan and Mike McLoughlin decided to cruise around Vegas and Henderson to check out a few places they heard were haunted, such as Treem Elementary School and Foxridge Park. After checking out these places a few times, O’Callaghan decided to bring a recorder along in hopes of catching an EVP, or electronic voice phenomena. After experiencing an EVP for the first time, McLoughlin and O’Callaghan decided to organize a group for further investigations.
Between April and May of 2008, McLoughlin and O’Callaghan cofounded the NSPI with Jacob Tipp. The three University of Nevada, Reno students saved up for equipment like video cameras, infrared technology, thermometers, recorders and more.
“We’ve been to Robb Canyon several times,” O’Callaghan, an economics and political science major, said. “(It) has a lot of history and many investigation groups visit it regularly.”
Aside from Robb Canyon, which O’Callaghan said they visited at least 15 times, the group has investigated Silver Terrace Cemetery in Virginia City, Fort Churchill off of Highway 95 and Buckland’s Station outside of Silver Springs. Their investigations led to many interesting discoveries, but have determined that not every place they visit is haunted.
“We try to be as skeptical as possible,” O’Callaghan said. “Any evidence that has the possibility of being explained logically is automatically disregarded. We won’t even consider it for evidence.”
But the group is not out to prove ghosts exist. McLoughlin said many investigation groups go to supposedly haunted areas with the intent to prove spirits are present, but the NSPI has a different objective.
“We want to see if the place has paranormal activity,” McLoughlin said. “We don’t have a bias one way or another.”
HAUNTING ORIGINS
The most probable cause for a haunting is usually the result of a traumatic or premature death, O’Callaghan said. But he also warned the area of paranormal investigation is all based on theory and not fact.
One example of this is Robb Canyon, he said. According to legend, four transients were found mutilated in the canyon. As a result, the violent death left spirits to haunt the area, O’Callaghan said.
Other locations they visited have similar history, McLoughlin said.
“Some interesting things occurred (at Buckland’s Station),” he said. “Some of Buckland’s children died prematurely. They had a son who burned to death and a daughter who died during childbirth in her late teens.”
McLoughlin said these kinds of deaths often leave spirits unsettled. But more often than not, there is a logical reason behind haunting suspicions.
Improperly wired technology can often emit an electromagnetic field throughout homes, causing nausea, dizziness and hallucination, O’Callaghan explained. He said these symptoms could lead to false paranormal suspicion. Another cause for paranormal anticipation can often arise from cold drafts flowing through a house.
“A lot of logical explanations can be used to disprove theories of hauntedness,” O’Callaghan said.
POTENTIAL EVIDENCE
EVPs are only one way of proving a haunting, but what are electronic voice phenomena exactly?
EVPs are sounds or voices that can be both heard or unheard by people in real time, O’Callaghan explained. He said the supposed reasoning behind the phenomena is that “the spirits will manipulate radio waves at such a low frequency that the human ear has a hard time hearing.” But, he said, recorders pick it up. After cleaning up the track and amplifying the sound at different speeds, a voice can be heard clearly.
Tipp said his most convincing incident was an encounter with something similar to an EVP that he heard live.
“When we were checking out the Gold Hill Hotel when we first started, I was walking behind Sean and we heard a loud knock,” Tipp said. “We both thought we had made the sound and no one was in the hotel, so we couldn’t explain it.”
Other than EVPs, inexplicable occurrences are often used for evidence for ghosts. Two of the most prominent are theories surrounding orbs and ectoplasmic mist. Orbs, as McLoughlin explains, are seen in the field to be collections of energy gathered into a small, floating shape. Paranormal experts hypothesize these orbs to be representative of spirits floating about, he said. But these orbs are not always reliable.
“In pictures, you catch dust and it looks like orbs and many don’t even think orbs are anything,” he said. “Everything about orbs is based on theory.”
Ectoplasmic mist, however, is much more realistic, O’Callaghan said. Ectoplasmic mist, as O’Callaghan explains, is what some people believe to be a ghost. It takes on the form of condensation, but does not reflect the way smoke or fog does to light or flash photography, he said.
“We got some photos of ectoplasmic mist at Robb Canyon,” he said. “Within a matter of seconds, a mysterious fog-like substance moved on a very direct path and then disappeared into the night.”
But despite these two semi-convincing forms of evidence, McLoughlin prefers the strangest of the three.
McLoughlin said, “EVPs, in my opinion, are the most reliable proof one can get for paranormal activity.”
NEXT FOR NSPI
With recent investigations finished at Buckland’s Station and various extensive investigations coming to a close at Silver Terrace Cemetery and Robb Canyon, NSPI hopes to move on to bigger, better things.
“Right now we’re looking to recruit more people,” O’Callaghan said. “Some of the bigger places we’re looking at investigating are going to need more people.”
Some of those bigger places on their checklist include the Gold Hill Motel, the Old Goldfield Motel, Fourth Ward School and St. Mary’s Art Center in Virginia City.
But no matter the size of the building, O’Callaghan said he’d never charge for the group’s services.
“I don’t want it to be a business,” he said. “It’s strictly a hobby.”
The rest of the group shares this sentiment. Tipp and McLoughlin both said they enjoy their investigations.
“We all have a great time,” McLoughlin said. “We’re really good friends and we love doing it.”
Julian Rhodes can be reached at julianrhodes@nevadasagebrush.com
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October 28th, 2008 at 8:19 am
are they known as the ‘Werewolfpack’?
October 29th, 2008 at 9:05 am
These guys should go over to Peccole Park and investigate last Saturday morning’s zombie gathering.