Ghost Hunting The Rocky Mountain Way
by Terry Jester
The team from Colorado Paranormal Research and Investigations has seen it, heard it and experienced it all.
The door opens and closes by itself. The chair rocks on its own. Strange shadows glide through the room before your eyes.
The team from Colorado Paranormal Research and Investigations (CPRI) has seen it, heard it and experienced it all. People calling in for help, their lives turned upside down by things they can’t explain. Hearing voices, smelling unusual smells, seeing objects move on their own, and, yes, sometimes seeing ghosts.
Image: CPRI co-founder Randy Schneider during a recent investigation in a Fort Collins basement
The CPRI team, founded by Fort Collins resident Randy Schneider and Greeley resident Jessica Harris, are very tight-lipped about their clients. After all, sometimes even the clients doubt their own sanity.
These clients usually don’t want others to know they’ve called in ghost busters to look into what’s going on in their houses. But when a toddler is lifted out of its crib and placed on a smoothed out blanket on the floor, a voice in the bathroom is repeatedly heard to say “close the window” and objects disappear only to show up weeks later in seemingly impossible places, it’s time to get some help.
CPRI is one of a handful of paranormal investigation teams in the Rocky Mountain Region recognized by peers and the Sci Fi network’s popular Ghost Hunters reality TV series to be a member of The Atlantic Paranormal Society. TAPS founders Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson of Rhode Island have turned their hit reality TV show into a national phenomenon.
“We never ask for money for our services,’’ Schneider said. “We don’t expect any type of reimbursement, even for gas. We’ll go where we are needed and help in any way we can.”
That’s no a small feat considering the cost of the technical equipment involved, including cameras, monitors, electromagnetic field detectors, analyzers and recorders.
With all that equipment, Schneider said about 80 percent of the things that go bump in the night can be dismissed as bad plumbing, poor house construction or faulty wiring. Another 10 percent is likely something other than paranormal. But the remaining 10 percent, he has no answer as to what or how something is occurring.
Would that be considered a haunting? “It’s unexplainable but that doesn’t mean it’s paranormal,’’ Schneider said.
One of the most interesting potentially paranormal occurrences is the Electronic Voice Phenomena. This is when someone’s voice shows up unexpectedly on a tape or digital recorder. A voice that was never heard when the recording was done.
“It’s good to be skeptical and acknowledge that these voices picked up by recording devices could very well be radio frequencies being skimmed and nothing more,’’ Schneider said.
“But when you ask a blank tape, ‘Is there anyone here with us tonight?’ and when you play the tape back later and hear a voice immediately after saying, I’m here,’ that’s harder to explain.”
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