FREQUENTLY
ASKED QUESTIONS
What are ghosts? No one really knows. The scientific type of investigation that has become popular in recent years may give us some insights. We know from observation that there are different types of hauntings. A "residual haunting" plays like a DVD. The images and/or sounds appear to recreate an event from the past, and the entity has no awareness of the current surroundings. Although they can be unsettling, these haunting appear to have no potential for danger. It's like watching a movie. I Intelligent hauntings involve entities that can interact with the environment. They can be tied to the site or to people. Tradition tells us that they are earthbound due to death by a traumatic event, unfinished business, or a sudden death. Based on our experience, they can be attracted to a person or a place due to criteria we don't understand. Some sensitive people seem to get visits from random spirits just passing through. Some places seem to attract spirits who had nothing to do with the place in life. For example, we've encountered a number of haunted churches. Maybe the spiritual energy attracts lost souls. The more evidence we collect, the clearer it is that we don't know much about ghost psychology or their motivations. We try to keep an open mind on our investigations, rather than coming in with preconceived notions about why entities are in a place. Poltergeist hauntings refer to non-human spirit entities that usually involve physical activities, like moving objects, throwing objects, and potentially more destructive behaviors. These hauntings are generally thought to be associated with a person rather than a building. There's common thinking that poltergeist activity is commonly associated with teenagers, as if having teenagers or being a teenager isn't hard enough on its own. What are orbs? We get a lot of orb pictures. The typical orb is a circle with colored swirls inside that appears in the photo. It is usually not visible to the people in the area. Some are probably bugs or dust, but some are really interesting. The common thought is that orbs are energy. In most ghost hunting circles, orbs are dismissed as not being signs of paranormal activity. In our experience, orbs show up in some very interesting places at some very interesting times. We're not convinced that orbs aren't a manifestation of spirit activity. Some of our best shots show orbs moving in ways that defy Newtonian physics, and we also have shots from multiple angles showing the same orb. In our experience, if a place is haunted, there shall be orb pictures. When people are experiencing EVPs, a phantom touch, feelings of a presence, etc., there is often an orb lurking nearby. What's a cold spot? The common thinking is that when an entity is trying to manifest, it needs to draw energy from somewhere. Our group members often find that fully charged batteries mysteriously drain instantly during an investigation, and the thinking is that the ghost finds the energy yummy. Cold spots are part of the same phenomena. The theory is that an entity draws on the heat energy as it tries to manifest. A true cold spot isn't just a chilly breeze. A true cold spot feels like a February morning in Wisconsin. We have walked through them, only to have them instantly disappear as we turned around and retraced our steps. We also have had cold spots approach investigators and follow them. We consider them to be part of an intelligent haunting. What's EMF? Most paranormal investigators carry an EMF detector that can detect changes in electromagnetic fields. The common thinking is that when ghosts try to manifest, they can be detected by sudden, unexplained changes in the room's EMF. Most groups, including DAPI, do an "EMF sweep" through a building to determine if there are any pre-existing condition that is causing high EMF readings throughout the building. Any building with electricity will have higher EMF readings in some areas, particularly around power panels, flourescent light fixtures, etc. The EMF in normal house with standard grounded circuits is not a health hazard. In some homes, poor grounding, overloaded power panels, unshielded cables or other problems may lead to EMF at higher than usual readings. (If you would like to make yourself really paranoid, try doing an Internet search for EMF health effects.) It is thought that high EMF can cause symptoms that mimic paranormal activites. You can feel as if you're being watched. In some cases, you can have auditory or visual hallucinations. This is why we check EMF first. If we walk into a "haunted" basement, and the needles on our EMF detectors bury themselves in the red zone, we consider that there may be a natural reason for the activities perceived in that area. Conversely, if we don't find unusual occurrences of EMF in the house, and EMF fields come and go during the investigation, we log that as an interesting factor in the investigation. We often invite entities to pass by or touch the equipment to try to make contact in a visible way. What's EVP? Electronic Voice Phenomena is a sound that is captured on a recording device without being heard at the time the recording was made. The thinking behind it is that entities, because of their nature, can affect the electronic media, but that they can't make audible sounds that the human ear can hear. During an EVP session, an investigator asks questions, leaving a delay between the questions to leave time for the entity to respond. The recording is later reviewed, and sounds that appear in those spaces can give us some interesting results. Some EVPs are garbled noises. Some are clear words. Almost every DAPI member carries a digital recorder. We use a computer program to analyze the recordings and note where EVPs occur. What should I do if my house is haunted? That's a tough question. A lot of it boils down to how much paranormal activity you can tolerate, and whether you have considered all of the mundane causes that can be misinterpreted as paranormal. For example, we all know that buildings creak and settle, that pipes bang, that doors swell and shrink with humidity, etc. We also not know that it's not normal for a transparent person to stroll through your living room. Sometimes you can increase the level of paranormal activity by focusing on it. We generally advise people not to constantly try to record EVPs or to use a Ouija board to try to contact the dead. Common sense tells you that if something is bothering you, you shouldn't poke at it. On the other hand, if you want to confirm that you're not crazy, or look to others to understand what's going on, it's a good practice to invite a reputable group of paranormal investigators to tour the place with equipment. Having some hard audio or photographic evidence may help to tell you what you're dealing with. You also might need help in moving it along if you decide that you don't want a non-living roommate. If you think you're going to invite an investigation team in, start to keep a journal of times and events so that they have a solid starting place. Most importantly keep an open mind. If a team comes in and tells you that the EMF in your house could cook a hotdog, and that it could be precipitating hallucinations, take that message and act on it with an electrician. Don't fall in love with the idea of having a haunted house if all of the hard evidence points to natural causes behind phenomena. As effective investigator must have an open mind, and so must you. Why DAPI? The DAPI team is made up of folks you'd meet at the supermarket. We have sensitives and techy types. We come in with an open mind. We will listen to your stories, and then we will investigate possible causes for the experiences you have had. We will consider explanations that are based on natural phenomena rather than paranormal. We also will be totally open to paranormal causes, and we will do a thorough, professional job using the best tools at our disposal. We will keep the investigation confidential, and after reviewing the evidence, we will give you an understandable presentation of our findings. We will listen with open minds, and we will do what we can to help you to understand and deal with any paranormal phenomena we find. |
 During this investigation, Sarah felt a presence over her shoulder. Dawn snapped a picture. Above her shoulder you can see an image of a face in the top left window pain.  Dawn is surrounded by orbs  Michael felt a sensation as if someone was caressing his arm, this picture was discovered.  Chuck took this picture from the door way where you can see the flash. In the top right window pain you can see a person, there was no one else in the room. |
