Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid

I’ve come to Hopkinton to find Frank. Standing in Blaser’s Fireside Tavern in the early evening of a warm late summer night, I’m talking with my contact, Jay Bowe. Jay’s invited me to join her and the team from ECTO, the East Coast Transcommunication Organization, for a night of paranormal investigation, or what laymen might call “ghost bustin’.” Jay introduces me to Nancy Blaser. She and her husband Terry have owned Blaser’s since 1999, and Nancy assures me the place is haunted, recounting story after story of spectral encounters. This is when I learn about Frank.

Frank Mills is Blaser’s resident ghost, and he’s been haunting this place since he shot himself dead in 1926, distraught over the death of his young bride the year before. Nancy must serve quite a pepper steak for anyone, dead or alive, to stick around the same place for seventy years, but before I can order from the pub menu, I head upstairs to meet the team. The ECTO members are easy to spot – they’re the ones dressed in black with the expensive AV equipment. One guy sets up the video cameras, microphones and VRCs; another unpacks his temperature gauges; a woman plays with a pendulum while another boots up a laptop. Between the dark clothes, facial hair and high-tech equipment, I feel like I’m backstage at an Allman Brothers concert, but then Tim Derr, the ECTO member specializing in EMF (electromagnetic frequency detection), introduces himself and shows me his tool of choice, the copper dowsing rod. I’d always thought dowsing rods were for mildly nutty people looking for water as the PBS cameras roll, but Tim is normal, chatty and definitely not nutty. Tim explains that dowsing rods can be used to detect changes in electromagnetic frequency, “a good sign that there’s spectral energy close by.”

This prompts another member, Ron Pinkham, with a gift for “spectral videography” to tell me, “It’s all about energy. These ghosts have energy that always exists, so we use these tools to find the energy.” Just then, Tim’s twin rods start spinning around as he approaches the stairwell, prompting Ron to use a hand-held EMF meter, but instead of stumbling upon our first ghost of the night, Ron and Tim agree that there must be power cables running behind the wall, Ron remarks, “That’s not paranormal, that’s just dangerous.” He continues, “Most of what we do is prove each other wrong. We want to make sure what we find is legit. We tell each other all the mistakes we’re making so we can prove the good stuff.” I can’t help but think these guys would make great house inspectors.

I need to be straight with you – I’m a believer. Granted, I might not sleep in cemeteries on Halloween and know my sisters rigged the Ouija board, but I’ve no doubt that some departed souls just never got the memo about the big sleep. And I admit it doesn’t take much to scare me – one scene in The Sixth Sense made me yelp aloud in a packed movie theater like a pre-teen girl with a wooly spider in her popcorn, and I often run faster than Edwin Moses getting up my basement stairs, just in case someone or something is following me, which I’m pretty sure is true most of the time.

It’s getting dark outside, and the team continues to set up. ECTO’s two leaders, Karen Mossey and Mike Sullivan, give me a quick overview of the world of paranormal investigation. Karen’s specialty is EVP - electronic voice phenomena - and she shows me her digital voice recorder, explaining that spirits, “manipulate the energy in the recording devices,” sometimes leaving behind their voices. Mike then gives me a primer in EVP, playing a series of creepy recordings, where I hear voices say things like, “We’re the hunters,” in a chilling, old-fashioned accent, and another that says, “I love you,” but not in the way you’d really want whispered in your ear. I listen and nod, but all I can think of is that I’ll never invite Karen to my house – with my luck, she’ll wander around with her voice recorder discovering the one ghost who loves to mock my personal hygiene. “Nose picker,” it would say or something just as revealing.
Mike, who’s been doing this kind of work for thirty-plus years, tells me that images of ghosts most often appear as reflections in mirrors or glass objects, which explains why he’s arranged a dozen or so old bottles and small mirrors throughout the third floor and why he takes photo after photo like an over-medicated tourist with film to burn. Mike shows me a photo from his collection, a tiny one of a man wearing a morning coat and bowler, and I get queasy because I’m pretty sure I’m staring at a picture of a man who’s been dead for fifty years. I bet if I fake left and run right, I can make it downstairs and to my car in twenty seconds, but it’s dark in the parking lot and who knows what’s out there waiting for me, so I thank Mike for the lesson and gird myself for what’s next.

The team gathers, and Karen begins in the near-pitch black on the third floor. I ask no one in particular if I should have some sort of safe word if Frank gets me in his ghostly clutches, like “binkie” or “mommy,” but the team is in no mood for jokes. Karen asks for quiet, calling out to Frank, urging him to join us. We’re greeted with silence, save for the soft snapping of digital photos. ECTO then moves into overdrive, using every tool at its disposal, exploring all parts of the tavern’s second and third floors. Karen hands me a thermalined monocular, a night-vision scope, and I walk around in the dark, praying that I see only people I recognize through the green-tinted lens.

The more the team explores every corner, I wonder if they’re frightening the ghosts away. If I were a ghost, these black-clad leaders of the AV Alumni Society calling out my name might make me hide in the floorboards for the night. I ask Audra Pinkham, Ronnie’s sister, if ghosts can be scared off, and she tells me, “If ghosts aren’t ready to go to the light, they are not ready and they are not leaving.” I prep my best Jo Beth Williams imitation, (“Carol Ann, stay away from the light!”) but think better of it and get back to my night vision duties.

Somehow, I find myself alone on the third floor in absolute darkness. I knew this was a bad idea. I’m in the one area in New Hampshire where ghosts book their appearances months in advance, and we’ve baited Frank into showing his ghostly face right in this room! But before I can hyperventilate into unconsciousness, I hear something downstairs. I hustle off to find the group huddled together, excited about a discovery, the first of the night. Karen presses play on her recorder, and we hear her voice call out, “Is there anybody here? Speak if you are here. Who is here?” And then we hear one word, spoken in a low, peculiar voice. The voice says, “Frank.” The team is ecstatic – real EVP proof that Frank has arrived! They may be thrilled, but my stomach feels like my pancreas is holding onto my duodenum for dear life, the three of them scared out of their wits, just like me.

As we listen again and again to Frank’s voice, I’m struck by the fact that these people are like the paparazzi – they sit around with expensive cameras and gear, waiting for a glimpse of someone special to show his face and then they pounce.The group heads back upstairs, but my night’s over. Tim’s dowsing rods may have found something else, and Karen’s planned a full séance to continue the chitchat with Frank, but I’ve heard enough to know there really are things that go bump in the night. Besides, it’s getting late and this crowd looks like it could go all night. I need to get home to go to sleep. With the lights on.