PA: Holiday spirts: Team of ghost hunters takes on Pottstown’s Ballroom on High

From Potts (PA) Mercury: Holiday spirts: Team of ghost hunters takes on Pottstown’s Ballroom on High
OTTSTOWN — It doesn’t matter whether you believe in ghosts. What matters is if you are curious.

That’s the philosophy of Jesse Donavan, an investigator with Extreme Paranormal Investigators, a group of ghost-hunting enthusiasts based in Morgantown.

Donovan was among the four-member EPI team that conducted an overnight investigation Wednesday of the five-story building that houses Ballroom on High, 310 E. High St.

From 9 p.m. Wednesday to 6 a.m. Thursday, the team endeavored to record audible and visible phenomenon at the building.

To begin, the EPI team — Donovan, Brian Sload, founder, Sandra Dee Guillen, co-founder, who also teaches ballroom dance at Ballroom on High, and Phil Mauro, lead investigator— set up a command center on the first floor of the building.

Next, they did a walk-through, wired up infrared and full-spectrum cameras, and set up audio, according to Sload. Next, they took measurements for Electronic Voice Phenomenon and other sounds. Sload explained that EVP are noises the human ear can’t hear.

“We try to go about it objectively and scientifically as well,” Sload said.

The building was built in 1908, subsequently demolished and then rebuilt in 1928, according to Sload. In its heyday, the building with a stately columned facade was home to an exclusive men’s organization called the Eagles Club. “This was a men’s club that originated in Washington, D.C. From what I understand, this was like the top location of the Eagles Club in Pennsylvania,” Sload said. “They held lots of dances here.”

The investigators set out in teams to record what they saw and heard in each room as well as the original and still functioning elevator with a wire cage. But there is a 30-minute period later in the night when each investigator is on his or her own doing an “EVP session,” all the while maintaining radio contact, Sload said.

“That’s where my heart gets moving really fast,” said Guillen. Continued...

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First, however, they did something many folks on a ghost hunt might not be comfortable with — they killed the lights.

“The whole investigation is in darkness, except for what we can see in the (infrared) cameras,” Sload said.

Once the set-up has been taken care of, the EPI team says a quick prayer to St. Michael to protect them from the Devil and “all evil spirits.”

Why the Ballroom?

Guillen said weeks before this investigation was planned she and Sload and two others explored the top two floors of the old building late at night, after she had finished up her dance classes.

Those two floors, notably, do not have electric lights.

While on the attic level, Guillen and Sload, both of Morgantown, said they got the distinct feeling that they were not alone.

Sload said “We went upstairs and heard what we call an Electronic Voice Phenomenon. We actually did catch a voice that wasn’t mine” on tape.

They said they heard a voice that was unmistakably male saying “I’m here.”

Prior to that, Guillen said she had sensed a presence in the building. Continued...

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“When I close at night buy myself, I have the feeling of someone there,” she said. “Just walking into the building you can feel it.”

Wednesday’s investigation was an attempt to get “more scientific” about the process, according to Sload, who works as a professional videographer.

Guillen said she and Sload began investigating paranormal phenomenon after a cemetery visit two years ago. But that wasn’t her first experience with the unexplained.

“What pushed me was when I was younger, I had things happen in my home in Texas. To this day I wonder how was that possible? Is there really an afterlife? It fascinates me,” she said.

Not a profession, a passion

EPI doesn’t charge for their investigations. Sload says no paranormal group should, although some people do try to make a living of it.

For the folks at EPI, the pursuit of the paranormal is more of a passion than a profession. All of the EPI teammembers have day jobs, and they pay for their own equipment.

“All of this is out of pocket. We have about $7,000 to $9,000 of equipment,” Sload said. “And we do it in our spare time.”

With costs going up as they do more investigations, EPI has come up with ways to raise some money. The conducted a seminar in Twin Valley in October, in which participants paid $75 each for a firsthand look at a paranormal investigation. Additionally, EPI is producing a DVD of their investigation of the “Ghosts of the Brandywine” River.

Eastern Pennsylvania with its many Revolutionary War battlefields is ripe for paranormal investigation, according to Mauro. Continued...

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“We’re trying to put together a project called ‘Ghosts of the Revolutionary War’,” said Mauro.

Other EPI investigations have included Seven Stars Inn, East Vincent, and Joanna Furnace, Morgantown. More information about EPI and their investigations is available on their website, www.extremeparanormalinvestigations.com.

Making contact

Asked if anyone on the team ever felt a physical presence of a ghost, Donovan spoke up. During EPI’s Brandywine investigation, while lying on a slab “It felt like someone put their hand on the back of my neck,” Donovan said, noting he was pretty freaked out. Sload was with him and felt nothing, he said.

With some resignation, Sload admitted he’s not particularly sensitive to paranormal phenomenon. Others on the team see and hear things before he does, he said.

“We’re out on the Brandywine, and these guys were hearing cannon shots, and they even heard a musket shot. I didn’t,” he said.

Sometimes spirits need to be prompted, according to Sload. Glow sticks or even a ball have been used as trigger objects. In the case of Ballroom on High, the EPI team brought cigars, hoping to draw out some of the good old boys from the Eagles Club.

That’s the spirit

An initial walk-through of 310 E. High St. revealed what remains of an old bowling alley. In the years since the Eagles Club used it for recreation, the large space has been divided into various rooms and has become a catch-all for odds and ends of furniture.

“This makes it fun and interesting,” said Donovan when he sees the bowling alley.

The second floor ballroom, with its expansive polished wood floor, is currently used for dance instruction and hall rentals.

The dark third floor appears to be just as large as the ballroom, with smaller rooms off to the side. Up a thin set of stairs is the dark attic floor where Guillen and Sload first encountered the disembodied male voice.

“Hopefully there are some spirits here,” Sload said. “We’re trying to find spirits.”

He noted, however, that the team attempts to rationally explain any noise or other phenomenon before terming it paranormal.

“If I experience something, I try to troubleshoot it,” he said. “We depend on our equipment a lot. We look for environmental changes, such as temperature or humidity.”

Not every investigation reveals something out of the ordinary, Sload said.

“There’s times we don’t catch anything,” he said, noting it’s not like the ghost hunting shows on TV. “On a lot of these shows, you see a lot of stuff that’s fabricated.”

Results?

We won’t know until their investigation is complete what, if anything, the EPI team found in Pottstown. “To do a full analysis takes weeks and weeks,” said Sload.

However, at 3:43 a.m. Thursday, Mauro tweeted: “Some crazy s**t going on this last hour! I can’t wait to go through our audio and video!”

So we do know they had fun looking.