By CRISTINA JANNEY
Hays Post
Footsteps in empty rooms, voices in the dark and disembodied voices coming from the other side are a few of the unexplained experiences the members of Old School Paranormal have experienced in their investigations of the unexplained.
Old School Paranormal of Hays investigated the Hays Public Library this summer for reported haunted happenings. They came back to the library Thursday night to present their findings to the public and share more about their otherworldly hobby. If you are a believer, their findings are chilling.
Old School Paranormal team members said they were called in by the library staff to help solve decades of paranormal claims by both patrons and library staff members. Claims included phantom footsteps, books moving on their own, a haunted painting, a man in a purple jumpsuit and claims that long-gone librarians are still tending to their beloved library.
During the night investigation, the paranormal investigators as well as Samantha Gill, adult librarian, and Vera Elwood, young adult services librarian, thought they heard footsteps on the main floor of the library while they were in the basement. The library was closed and locked. When they searched the area, no one could be found.
The investigators used electromagnetic field detectors, which are also known as EMF or K2 detectors, in the building. The theory in ghost hunting is a spirit can alter the electromagnetic field to interact with the living. The devices beep or light up when interacting with a spirit.
Both Gill and Elwood asked the spirits questions while holding the EMF detectors and both devices indicated to very specific questions. This led the librarians and the investigators to believe they might have been in contact with a former female librarian as well as a spirit of a teen boy.
“What was most interesting is that it almost was an intelligible conversation,” said Scott Stults, a team co-founder, lead investigator.
Steve Stults, a team co-founder, lead investigator and Scott’s brother, said “Is it a ghost? Is it somebody who is stuck down there and can’t get out and needs help getting out? We don’t know — possibly, possibly not.”
The investigators, who usually spend all night in a location, only spent four hours at the library and said they would like to come back for an extended probe.
Villisca Ax Murderer House
The team visited the Villisca Ax Murderer House in 2016. Sometime past midnight on Monday, June 10, 1912, a person or persons entered the Moore house in Villisca, Iowa, and used an ax to bludgeon eight sleeping people to death. This included mother and father, Josiah and Sarah Moore, their four children, and two of the children’s young friends. The children ranged in age from 5 to 12.
The killer or killers were never brought to justice, despite a decade-long investigation. Some believe the killer might have jumped a train in Iowa and traveled to other communities, including Ellsworth and Colorado Springs, Colo., and committed more murders.
The team recorded video of what they believe is the murder speaking through a spirit box. The machine rapidly cycles through AM and FM radio stations. The theory is spirits can speak through the white noise.
Voice in the dark
Scott said about 95 percent of the team’s evidence comes from audio recordings. Audio recorders can pick up sounds or what appears to be words or phrases that the team did not hear with the naked ear at the time of the recordings.
The team is made up of five men, which also includes Kevin Sauer, investigator, tech manager, electronics specialist, social media manager; Neal Dreher, investigator and building systems specialist; and John Kreutzer, co-founder, lead investigator, case manager, researcher. However, the men claimed to have recorded children’s and women’s voices during investigations.
“When you capture a woman singing at 3 o’clock in the morning, how do you explain that?” Scott said. “You are out in the middle of nowhere. That is why we do the things we do.”
The team shared a number of EVP, electronic voice phenomenon, they recorded at previous investigations.
At the Ness County Bank, the team thought they heard on a recording a female voice saying, “Please don’t leave us. We need you.”
When Steve was on a previous paranormal team, he recorded at the Midland Hotel in Wilson what they thought was a girl’s voice, saying “Mommy.” There was a fire at the hotel in the early 1900s, and the story goes the ghost of a girl who died in that fire haunts the hotel and pulls on guests’ sheets.
At the Ennis Handy House in Goodland, the team recorded what sounded like a woman singing, “You don’t have to leave. You don’t have to go.”
The spirits also at times seem to aggravate other senses. The team claims they intermittently smelled pipe tobacco in one building they investigated. In another instance, Steve said he felt a searing pain in the back of leg as if he had ben bitten by a dog.
Tools of the trade
Sauer ran the group through some of their other equipment, which included video cameras with night vision, low-tech, old-school witching rods, skeletal mapping software and trigger props, including a small toy train that makes a noise only when it is physically touched.
“Imagine you are somewhere, and I will use Fort Harker as an example,” Scott said. “They have a depot there, so obviously it makes sense to put that train in the depot. Nobody is in there. It’s locked. The curator opens the door and walks in, and that is going off across the room. So what would have prompted that or caused that to go off? That is the paranormal part of it.”
Despite all of the tech, Sauer said the team’s best asset is their own senses.
Scott said, “If you hear something and it sounds like a whistle, you try to figure it out. Maybe you are in a building that was built in 1888, and the windows have some gaps in them and it is windy outside. Just because you hear something doesn’t automatically make it a ghost or spirit.”
Even the believers are skeptics
Steve said no one has been able to prove without a shadow of a doubt the existence of ghosts. The team operates on theory. Paranormal is anything outside the realm of normal or what is expected.
“It nutshell, it is the investigation of claims or reports of ghosts or spirits or any paranormal activity.
“There are a lot of instances we are going into places that have claims of doors closing on their own, or you live by yourself and you hear footsteps upstairs in the attic, things like that,” he said. “We are not saying those are ghosts. That is where we come in and try to figure out what the heck is going on.
“If we can’t, with our vast array of devices, come up with an explanation as far as what is going on – that is what paranormal is. It doesn’t mean there is a ghost or anything like that. Paranormal is more than spirits or spooks or whatever you want to call them.”
Scott said paranormal investigation is not like it appears on TV in shows such as “Ghost Hunters.” Those shows take hours or days of video footage and only show viewers the most exciting bits and pieces.
“It is a lot of sitting around in the dark, sometimes people falling asleep. It is a lot of sitting around and waiting,” he said. “When things happen, it is exciting. It’s a rush, but it takes a long time for things like that to kick into gear. Sometimes it doesn’t happen at all.”
Dreher said when you get home you have to go through hours of video or audio even though you believe there is probably nothing on the recordings. It can take the group as long as three months to evaluate all of the audio and video they take during a full investigation.
Future investigations
The team is preparing for an investigation at Fort Riley, the first one of its kind authorized by the military.
The team is always looking for new sites to investigate. It does not charge for investigations, but will accept donations for expenses. This is a hobby for the men, who all have day jobs. They do not claim to be professionals, but they do carry insurance.
The team doesn’t usually investigate outdoor locations because of the environmental distractions. They also require a property owner’s permission and will not trespass. They also typically do not investigate private residences. Most of their investigations are in museums or other historical buildings.