I Went Ghost Hunting With Professional Ghost Hunters
I'm standing in a room filled with haunted objects. A doll from the Villisca ax murder house. Cursed carvings from a church in Pennsylvania. A mask that makes its wearer astral project. Ouija boards from various people who learned the hard way that they’re most definitely not toys. A painting that whispers "Mommy and Daddy don't love you" in children’s ears at night. On one wall there's a replica of Fox Mulder's iconic "I WANT TO BELIEVE" poster, but as far as I know that's not haunted — it's just decoration.
This is the office of Dana Matthews and Greg Newkirk, professional paranormal investigators, and these objects are part of their Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and the Occult. Dana and Greg (37 and 33 years old, respectively) have been full-time paranormal investigators for about five years, but they've been interested in all things strange for much longer than that. Growing up outside Toronto, Ontario, Dana first became interested in the paranormal after watching Unsolved Mysteries and The X-Files; she quite literally wanted to be Scully until her mother told her Canadians can’t join the FBI. She met Greg as a teenager, when he was a 12-year-old running a rival ghost website (hosted by Geocities). Later, after an older, wiser Greg got over his youthful jealousy about Dana and her friends landing a TV show called The Girly Ghost Hunters (its 13 episodes aired on Canada's Space network in 2005), he tracked her down, they went on a ghost hunt, and as Dana puts it, "Now we're married."
This isn't the first time I've been to a museum of the occult, but it is the first time I've been to one where the curators offered to let me hold some of the exhibits. "That one is fine, I promise," says Dana, gesturing to the plaster-cast molding of the aforementioned carvings. "It won’t do anything to you," adds Greg. He pauses. "Wait, are you a witch? Because then it might." I'm pretty sure he's joking, but I still refuse to play with fire and decide not to take him up on the chance to hold a 200-year-old curse to ward off witches. Later, they assure me it'll be fine to hold an African statue officially known as "The Idol of Nightmares" that they affectionately refer to as "Billy," but again I demur. "Billy was found under a house in Dayton, Ohio, wrapped in a burlap sack, bound in twine,” says Greg. "No one's really sure what he was doing down there. The guy [and his family] had only lived there for about six months. He was running some new cable and he finds this big lump of dirt, brings it upstairs, and cuts Billy out of the burlap. Then his kid starts having nightmares that the little man's coming in his room at night, pulling the covers off of him while he sleeps. Then they started hearing people rummaging through their kitchen at night. Televisions were going on and off, faucets, and then they started having terrible nightmares." Perhaps you can see why I said no, even if Billy's EVP (electronic voice phenomena) sessions have gotten so "conversational" that visitors bring him offerings of rum, tobacco, and shot glasses, and the Newkirks feel comfortable keeping him displayed in the living room.
Full story at site with pics
I'm standing in a room filled with haunted objects. A doll from the Villisca ax murder house. Cursed carvings from a church in Pennsylvania. A mask that makes its wearer astral project. Ouija boards from various people who learned the hard way that they’re most definitely not toys. A painting that whispers "Mommy and Daddy don't love you" in children’s ears at night. On one wall there's a replica of Fox Mulder's iconic "I WANT TO BELIEVE" poster, but as far as I know that's not haunted — it's just decoration.
This is the office of Dana Matthews and Greg Newkirk, professional paranormal investigators, and these objects are part of their Traveling Museum of the Paranormal and the Occult. Dana and Greg (37 and 33 years old, respectively) have been full-time paranormal investigators for about five years, but they've been interested in all things strange for much longer than that. Growing up outside Toronto, Ontario, Dana first became interested in the paranormal after watching Unsolved Mysteries and The X-Files; she quite literally wanted to be Scully until her mother told her Canadians can’t join the FBI. She met Greg as a teenager, when he was a 12-year-old running a rival ghost website (hosted by Geocities). Later, after an older, wiser Greg got over his youthful jealousy about Dana and her friends landing a TV show called The Girly Ghost Hunters (its 13 episodes aired on Canada's Space network in 2005), he tracked her down, they went on a ghost hunt, and as Dana puts it, "Now we're married."
This isn't the first time I've been to a museum of the occult, but it is the first time I've been to one where the curators offered to let me hold some of the exhibits. "That one is fine, I promise," says Dana, gesturing to the plaster-cast molding of the aforementioned carvings. "It won’t do anything to you," adds Greg. He pauses. "Wait, are you a witch? Because then it might." I'm pretty sure he's joking, but I still refuse to play with fire and decide not to take him up on the chance to hold a 200-year-old curse to ward off witches. Later, they assure me it'll be fine to hold an African statue officially known as "The Idol of Nightmares" that they affectionately refer to as "Billy," but again I demur. "Billy was found under a house in Dayton, Ohio, wrapped in a burlap sack, bound in twine,” says Greg. "No one's really sure what he was doing down there. The guy [and his family] had only lived there for about six months. He was running some new cable and he finds this big lump of dirt, brings it upstairs, and cuts Billy out of the burlap. Then his kid starts having nightmares that the little man's coming in his room at night, pulling the covers off of him while he sleeps. Then they started hearing people rummaging through their kitchen at night. Televisions were going on and off, faucets, and then they started having terrible nightmares." Perhaps you can see why I said no, even if Billy's EVP (electronic voice phenomena) sessions have gotten so "conversational" that visitors bring him offerings of rum, tobacco, and shot glasses, and the Newkirks feel comfortable keeping him displayed in the living room.
Full story at site with pics
