Searching For Tangible Evidence
by Mary Catherine Brooks
A psychic researcher believes it’s possible to learn to communicate with those who have passed from this world into the next.
Image: Dr. Alvin C. Proffit is a certified ghost researcher by the International Ghost Hunter’s Society and has researched ghostly phenomena from the Hawaiian Island of Oahu to the Cape Fear River on the east coast of North Carolina to the Ocala National Forest in central Florida
Ghost hunting can be tantamount to watching grass grow, a painstaking search, usually completed in the dark, that requires an uncanny ability to search out minute details, enough passion to comb through dozens of photos, the patience to listen to hours of audio recordings and watch video surveillance of the scene.
When that search, however, reveals tangible evidence in the form of other worldly voice recordings or photos of spirits, the hours of investigation are well worth it — at least for Dr. Alvin C. Proffit, a psychic researcher. Most people would call him a ghost hunter, now very much in vogue due to well known psychics and popular television shows.
Proffit is a professor at Appalachian State University in North Carolina, teaching educational leadership.
His story, along with an accompanying article focusing on hauntings in Wyoming County, is featured in the October-November issue of West Virginia South, now on newsstands across southern West Virginia.
Proffit is earning a solid reputation and winning respect in the paranormal industry. Several of his investigations have been carried live simultaneously on radio stations around the world. He has been invited to discuss his work, lecture and investigate around the globe.
He has taken photographs that are fast becoming some of the most well known in the paranormal industry.
He has conducted investigations in theaters, numerous college and university buildings, both private and public schools and homes, among other locations.
“My favorite school was one in Hawaii,” he said. “It has all kinds of occurrences and the paranormal is accepted as fact there. This school has poltergeist drills along with regular fire drills. A poltergeist situation is one where objects move by themselves, sometimes as if they were violently thrown. Poltergeists have also been blamed for starting fires and creating large amounts of water from thin air.”
On a recent night in Wyoming County, Proffit, along with his daughter Kara, well known author and storyteller David “Bugs” Stover and several others, set up shop in search of evidence which may prove, or disprove, years of ghost stories in this particular location.
Case after case of equipment is lugged inside, then set up by Proffit.
He explains in great detail to the small group of amateur ghost hunters, and anxious observers, just how each piece of equipment plays a vital role in this investigation.
The equipment varies from digital and infrared cameras, to audio and video recorders, to special thermometers which can detect and record sudden temperature drops, and a model of “Edison’s Box,” believed by paranormal investigators to have been built by Thomas A. Edison just before his death. Edison was working on a machine to “talk to the dead,” Proffit explained.
Proffit also outlines his belief in the paranormal and the fact that some physicists believe that people can move in time, either forward or backward, at their whim. It is only a matter of learning how.
Proffit shares his belief that it is only a matter of learning how to communicate with those who have passed from this world into the next, or a parallel, world. He hopes to be among the first to discover just how to communicate with this world.
He mentions a few of the paranormal investigators with whom he has worked, including internationally known demonologist John Zaffis. Proffit also notes he has met only one person whom he believes to have actual psychic abilities.
Suddenly, the lights in the adjoining room come on. Stover checks to see if someone may have happened into the room. He finds no one and turns the lights off.
Just as suddenly, an alarm reverberates through the space. While the piercing noise blares, Proffit looks amid his equipment to locate the source. He cannot identify it because none of his equipment is equipped with such an alarm.
Without explanation, the alarm just as suddenly stops. Proffit still has no idea what set off the alarm or from which piece of equipment it erupted.
Now a bit spooked, the group settles down and the lights are turned very, very low.
It falls to Stover, in his robust storyteller voice, to “talk” with any spirits that may be inhabiting the location.
As Stover’s voice resonates across the large space, more than half of the eight people participating hear a soft, whooshing moan from the back of the large room just as Stover is talking of a reported suicide.
Small flashlights and cameras in hand, the group spreads out, looking for the source of the “moans.” None is found.
Stover then continues, expounding on the myriad stories that have surrounded the location for decades, throwing in history that might be of interest to any other worldly inhabitants.
Again, when he mentions stories of suicide, the moaning sound is heard from the same location.
Is it a ghost? A spirit? A lost soul searching for an end to existence in this world? Or is it a noise that can easily be explained?
Cameras flash, then are downloaded into Proffit’s laptop computer.
Splashes of light in unexplained places are shown in the pictures.
However, Proffit, despite his interest in the paranormal, is very skeptical. He pulls his glasses from his pocket, shines his small flashlight on the same location as depicted in the photo and deems the image merely a reflection of the camera flash.
It will take days, however, to look over all the photographs and listen to all the recordings collected during this investigation.
. . .
“I think most paranormal investigators will tell you there are logical explanations for most of the events they are called in to investigate,” Proffit emphasized. “I have found this to be true as well ...
“So many things have to be considered before you can even consider if a place is actually experiencing paranormal activity. An important rule to remember is that an event, or series of events, can only be considered paranormal once all logical, or normal, explanations have been ruled out. This can include so many factors ranging from electromagnetic fields, to pranksters, to those wishing to defraud.”
Proffit doles out his various types of cameras to those participating, explaining that some people have a gift for taking photos of spirits.
The more people shooting photos and the more photos taken provide a better chance for capturing that elusive proof, Proffit believes.
Meanwhile, his audio recorders are operating. These recordings as well will be downloaded into the computer for a more detailed examination. The computer can separate the noises, providing cleaner recordings and, sometimes, distinct voices that may not be speaking English, Proffit explains.
The night wears on, with only the sound of time ticking away and the flashes of cameras shooting in the darkness.
Stover has collected tidbits of more than 100 stories from across Wyoming County, some from this particular location. He has turned at least 30 of those stories into full-fledged ghost stories.
“I’m a story collector, not a ghost hunter,” Stover notes. “I have never seen anything that makes me 100 percent certain there are ghosts, but I have seen enough that I am not 100 percent certain there aren’t ghosts.
“I believe there is definitely the possibility something is going on that cannot easily be explained.”
Days later, Proffit has examined only a portion of the photos and recordings from this particular investigation.
Some of the photos do indicate colored, misty-like shapes and orbs that he cannot explain through logical circumstances; one even has a face for which he cannot account.
Factor in the lights, the alarm and the moaning, and one would think it is certainly a haunted location.
“I did see enough to indicate a different type of investigation, a little more extended, is warranted,” Proffit said.
What will it take for hard-core skeptics to believe in the possibility of spirits, or ghosts, or some form of life in a parallel world?
“They will have to experience it for themselves,” Proffit emphasized.
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