Published: April 23, 2006 11:54 pm            

Ghost hunters probe The Star for paranormal activity

MERIDIAN — Instead of a late night stroll through a cemetery or walking the floors of a home, members of the local ghost-hunting group Orbservations descended on a downtown business around mid-day Sunday.

“This is one of the places we’ve always wanted to check out,” said Gigi Ahrens, co-founder of the paranormal investigation and research group, as she and four other members entered The Meridian Star.

“Several people have told us stories about strange things they’ve seen or heard, like feeling something touch them on the back of their neck, their name being called or seeing people out of the corner of their eye,” Ahrens said.

After four hours of gathering evidence with digital cameras, voice recorders and other technology, the investigative team may be able to shed some light on those unexplained occurrences.

“We definitely got something on video,” Ahrens said with great anticipation of days of reviewing hours of recorded material.

“It was a very, very bright solid orb and it just slowly came through the room,” she said. “It manifested right in front of the press — we got that on camera — and it moved slowly, I mean really slow, just kind of inched across the screen. And then it stopped, continued on, stopped and just kept on going.”

The Star last reported on Orbservations around Halloween, when the group was seeking various places where hauntings have been reported.

At least three times a month, six of the ghost-hunting group’s 25 members search for signs of paranormal activity.

“We’re asked by people to check out their homes or businesses or anywhere there has been unexplained anomalies or phenomenons — things that go bump in the night,” Ahrens said.

“We try to debunk myths and come up with rational explanations for why things happen. When we can’t come up with it or we can’t recreate the anomaly ourselves easily, then we dwell on it a little bit further as far as what’s the paranormal aspect — is it something that can’t be reproduced, is it something we can’t explain — and we try to gather evidence.”

Investigations are conducted using six cameras — four infrareds connected to a digital video recording system and two night vision cameras — three voice recorders, a carbon monoxide detector, an electromagnetic field detector and infrared non-contact thermometers.

All investigations are done voluntarily.

“Everything is done free, whether it’s research on the location or actually coming out and investigating,” Ahrens said. “We never charge for anything we do. To us, it’s the love of the science. We will go anywhere — if it’s within our budget and our power to go, we will go.”

Orbservations is an official member of the TAPS family. TAPS, or The Atlantic Paranormal Society, helps its members by sharing knowledge of past and present cases of paranormal activity, as well as helping with extra investigations when needed on certain cases. Ahrens said she hopes TAPS will visit Meridian to mark the opening of the Grand Opera House and Marks-Rothenberg Building as part of Mississippi State University’s renovated Riley Education and Performing Arts Center.



Want To Know More?



To learn more about Orbservations, visit the Web site www.orbservations.com. To request an investigation, e-mail Gigi Ahrens at gigi@orbservations.com or call (601) 453-4013.

        

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