Kenosha, Wisconsin - A local group is searching for hard evidence. They call themselves Wisconsin Paranormal Investigators.

Jay Bachochin and his wife founded the group. They don’t advertise their services—it’s strictly “by request” because their nine members all have “real” day jobs.

“The way we look at it is, we’re all kind of respectable people with respectable jobs,” WPI member Allen Dunski said. “We’re not just hoodlums out there, running through graveyards, destroying things while we’re doing it.”

Bachochin said the group doesn’t charge anything for its services. “This is our passion,” he said.

Their slogan is Hunt The Truth, and they’re in prime hunting territory. They say experts believe that the Midwest is the most haunted part of the United States. “But they’re saying by square mile—if you look at square mile—the state of Wisconsin actually has the most activity,” WPI member Paul Gasper said.

When someone calls about a suspected “ghost,” WPI has to decide if it’s worth investigating.

“Anything could be possible,” Gasper said. “We’re definitely not going to think anybody’s crazy, because we know that it can exist. There can be stuff out there.”

The first thing they do is try to “debunk” a situation. They look for a reason behind any mysterious sights or sounds.

“Ninety-nine percent of the stuff is more than likely explainable—whether it be the heating ducts, the plumbing, somebody outside,” Dunski said. “There’s so many things that can naturally be explained and not be a haunting.”

“We will peel that onion until we can say, ‘It’s natural, and it’s hard to deem that being paranormal activity,” Bachochin said.

If their equipment does pick up something unusual, they work to explain that too.

“We’ll try and duplicate the situation that we were in—the exact lighting, the exact time, the exact camera, the same settings,” Dunski said. “So we go through a lot of different things to disprove what’s going on.”

But some things they can’t explain. Like the time in a supposedly haunted basement, when Paul saw a form taking shape in the darkness.

“I said out loud to Jay and Keith, ‘I think there’s something down here; there’s something right in the corner,’ “ Gasper said. “ And as soon as I said that, I saw it move, come towards me. And that’s when I thought I felt like it came ‘through’ me. And I got chills, and my hair went up.”

“All of a sudden, before I could even say anything, Jay said, in the other room, that the same thing just happened to him.”

That instance was not caught on any of their special cameras or digital voice recorders, which pick up frequencies that humans can’t hear. But they have heard unexplained voices. Allen was investigating a room where a man had committed suicide.

“I asked the question, ‘So you’re the one that killed yourself?’ “ Gasper said. “And as soon as I had completed ‘yourself,’ you heard a faint ‘yeah.’ We didn’t hear it with our own ears, but when we played it back, there it was 3:22:42

On a trip to a cemetery, they recorded another eerie voice.

“As we were walking—Paul was a couple feet behind me—and I started walking right into what sounded like a laugh, real kind of low,” Bachochin said. “We didn’t see anything. We turned on the lights and there was nothing there. But it was definitely something.”

WPI members always work in teams of at least two, and they take hundreds of pictures during an investigation. Some have unexplained shadows or mists. This one in a cemetery shows what they call a ‘shooting orb’—not from a flashlight or a reflection.

Bachochin said WPI doesn’t normally use orbs as evidence, unless they appear solid.

The ghost hunters say they’ve been spooked by some situations, but not frightened to the core.

“I really think if I’m going to see face jump out at me—or someone push me down or pull me—yeah, I probably would be,” Bachochin said. But until then, no. I’m ready to take them on. I’m not going to show any fear. I’m going to be there to prove that they’re there and not be afraid of it.”

Dunski said he thinks the general consensus regarding ghosts is skeptical, but most people believe there’s “something going on.”

“What is a ghost?” Bachochin said. “That’s what we’re still trying to find out too.”

WPI is based out of the Kenosha area.

They will first ask a lot of questions over the phone to see if the person sounds like they have a legitimately strange case that’s worth investigating.

A typical investigation consists of them setting up their equipment and cameras from about 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. and staking out the place all night with at least two WPI members.

Then they go over their hundreds of pictures and listen to every second of audio tape that they recorded overnight and tell the home/business owner if they think there really is anything paranormal going on.