Ireland: Find vampires with hi-tech Halloween ghost hunt in new mobile phone game

From  Heralf, IE : Find vampires with hi-tech Halloween ghost hunt in new mobile phone game

DRACULA fans can have a bloody good time around Dublin this weekend by downloading Bram Stoker's Vampires smartphone game and going on a city ghost hunt.
The game uses GPS to turn players' smartphones into paranormal detection devices to lead then on an hour-long adventure around Stoker's old haunts, including Trinity College and Dublin Castle.
Their mission is to track down evil vampires and eriee ghosts and prove their existence by photographing them. Players can post these frightening images to Twitter and Facebook.
The characters in the game are based on vampires that appear in Bram Stoker's epic horror Dracula novel, including Count Dracula himself and the three vampire sisters Jonathan Harker encounters in Dracula's castle in Transylvania.
The game's creators have hinted that a talented ghost hunter may even be able to track down the wandering soul of old Stoker himself.
This new horror gaming experience is being launched as part of the inaugural Bram Stoker Festival, which celebrates the Dublin author's gothic horror on the centenary of his death.
Louise O'Reilly, project directorl told the Herald: "We are delighted to collaborate with Science Gallery and Haunted Planet Studios to bring this contemporary edge to experience the gothic author's enduring literary legacy in a totally original way."
The game's inventor, Mads Haar -- a computer science lecturer at Trinity College -- described the Haunted Planet gaming platform as "a global mystery adventure game that takes place in the real world". Mr Haar founded the Haunted Planet company in Dublin in 2010.

 

 

29 Oct, Scranton, PA: "Ghost Hunting 101" coming to the Scranton Cultural Center

From GoLackwanna:  "Ghost Hunting 101" coming to the Scranton Cultural Center

Are there ghosts in the Scranton Cultural Center at the Masonic Temple? Community members are invited to join the Society of Paranormal Research and Investigation (S.P.R.I.) in scouring the Masonic Temple for evidence of paranormal activity as they present "Ghost Hunting 101" Oct. 29 and 30 at 6 p.m. and 9 p.m. on both evenings.
Participants will get the chance to use state of the art equipment and learn the techniques of paranormal investigators. They’ll learn how to use their equipment as well help the S.P.R.I try to find proof of the paranormal at the Scranton Cultural Center. Anyone who has their own ghost hunting equipment is also welcome to bring it and join in the hunt.
Light fare and a cash bar will be available throughout the evening. Tickets are $35 and can be purchased at the SCC Box Office, by calling 570.344.1111, at Ticketmaster.com, by calling 1.800.745.3000 or at select Wal-Mart, Boscov’s or Gallery of Sound locations. Visit the SCC’s website, ScrantonCulturalCenter.org, for more information.

 

Michigan: Saginaw's ghost hunt: 'A Haunting on Potter Street' to premier at the Temple Theatre

From MLive:  Saginaw's ghost hunt: 'A Haunting on Potter Street' to premier at the Temple Theatre

SAGINAW, MI — Over the last few years, a frightening evening at the Temple Theatre in Saginaw has become a Halloween tradition.
The Seekers team, creators of “A Haunting on Hamilton Street” parts one and two, will release their third investigation into the paranormal legends of Saginaw this November.
The new documentary, “A Haunting on Potter Street: The Potter Street Station,” will be shown at 9 p.m. Nov. 2 and 3 and at 7 p.m. Nov. 4 at the Temple Theatre, 203 N. Washington in Saginaw.
(View the extended trailer for “A Haunting on Potter Street” here.)
“The promoter added at third show because we sold out (two showings) last year and had people literally crying because they couldn’t get in,” said Julie Nunn, executive director of the Temple Theatre.
Tickets are on sale now for $17, and each ticketholder will receive a DVD copy of the film.
Nunn said tickets sell out quickly, and because the tickets are general admission, patrons line up outside the theater early to ensure they will get good seats.
“It’s not just a film or a movie, it’s an event,” Nunn said. “The energy in the theater is just amazing.”
The Seekers and rapper Steve “Prozak” Shippy and his team of paranormal investigators spent several nights at the Potter Street Station, 501 Potter, looking for the best areas to set up their equipment to record evidence of paranormal activity.
The documentary was filmed during the course of a one-night lock-in at the station.
The movie “offers a lot of history and a ton of evidence,” Shippy said. “There’s a lot of elements: history, danger and the paranormal.”
Built in 1881, the Potter Street Station was a bustling hub of activity in Saginaw. It closed in 1985 and was eventually purchased by the nonprofit Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp. in 1989. Leroy Austin, the group’s vice president, said the group hopes to restore it and turn it into a center for the arts.
In 1991, the building was heavily damaged in an unsolved arson.
The building’s history has left its mark in the form of several specters who never left, Shippy said.
“Residents around the station and some police that patrol the area claim to see a man walking up and down in front of the station,” he said. “Then he just vanishes."
Others have reported seeing a woman in white inside the station.
“Some volunteers (from the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp.) see her while repairing the building,” Shippy said. “She will just appear in front of them and give them a little more of a scare than I think they’d like.”
One volunteer who saw the Woman in White told Austin he will not to return to the station.
Austin said he had one paranormal experience in the station.
“I’ve heard voices, but I haven’t seen anything myself,” he said.
While the crew was filming the documentary, Austin and other members of the Saginaw Depot Preservation Corp. were standing guard to make sure no one would wander in and disrupt the filming when he heard a man’s voice behind him.
“I questioned what it was,” he said. “I thought I didn’t hear it right, but very clearly someone said, ‘Find your place.’”
Other volunteers have reported hearing a murmuring crowd of voices, feeling a touch on their shoulder and feeling cold drafts when there is no wind.
These kinds of apparitions and paranormal activity are probably the result of the station's long and sometimes dark history, Shippy said.
The area surrounding the station was once filled with bars, brothels and gambling houses.
“The brawls and stabbings in that area were plentiful,” Shippy said.
Shippy said several men were injured or killed working in the station’s yard, and bodies of soldiers killed in battle were brought home to Saginaw through the station during World War I and World War II.
“I’m sure that’s where a lot of wives went to say goodbye to their husbands and never saw them again,” Austin said. “Other times, people passed away (in Saginaw) and were shipped to other places. It was a center where (bodies) were brought or received, and that could have caused some (of the activity).”
Austin said most volunteers working on the station haven’t been deterred by the strange things they have seen and heard there.
“The rest of us don’t feel there’s anything that would hurt us or anything really menacing,” he said.
Even without the spooky incidents, the station itself is an interesting piece of Saginaw history.
“It’s a photographer’s dream,” Shippy said. “It’s like going underwater and exploring the Titanic. It has this grand design and decay and a definite dark side.”
The audience will get to see an extended trailer for the team’s fourth film, which will debut in 2013.
“We decided to investigate a private residence, which we don’t usually do,” Shippy said. “This person had contacted us many times, and her claims were so outrageous, we just had to go check it out.”
The Seekers team will film its fifth investigation in February 2013 to debut in 2014.
The team experienced so much paranormal activity in its initial meeting with the woman, a single mother of two, Shippy said the members felt compelled to investigate further.
To buy tickets for “A Haunting on Potter Street,” visit www.templetheatre.com or call the box office at 989-754-7469.

 

Ghosts were object of search at UNO's Paranormal Summit

From Omaha.com: Ghosts were object of search at UNO's Paranormal Summit

JAMES R. BURNETT/THE WORLD-HERALD

Local ghost hunting groups converged this month on the University of Nebraska at Omaha campus for the second annual Paranormal Summit, discussing recent findings and leading small ghost hunts around the grounds at night. In front, from left, are Kyle Finley, Ashley Chrism and Jeremy Andersen. In back, from left, are faculty adviser David Pares, Matt Judah, Katrina Arnold, PRISM Director Carl Norgard, Michael Petranick, Larry Kennedy, UNO Paranormal Society President John Powers and Ashley DeBolt.

 

More than a hundred amateur ghost hunters spent a recent Friday night searching the campus of the University of Nebraska at Omaha for signs of paranormal life.

They used a tool called a ghost box — which resembles a small radio — to “communicate” with the other side. They employed another tool that measures electrical currents to search for hot spots they believe ghosts create.

The ghost hunters videotaped and recorded the hunt to see if the cameras picked up on things that human senses could not. Ghost hunters also look for electronic voice phenomena, more commonly known as EVP — electronic sounds that resemble speech. They believe EVP suggests paranormal activity.

Others, of course, say it's just background noise.
The hunt was the grand finale of UNO's second annual Paranormal Summit, put on by the student-run Paranormal Society and drawing ghost-hunting groups from Omaha and the surrounding area. UNO students and regular people interested in ghost hunting came, too.
The event included presentations of evidence from ghost hunts, discussions of good ghost-hunting spots and a panel discussion in which members of various groups compared notes and took questions from the audience.
But the ghost hunt was the most exciting — and spooky — part of the night.
In past hunts, “we've gotten EVP all over campus,” said Kelley Kennedy, a member of the Omaha ghost-hunting group Paranormal Research and Investigative Studies Midwest — PRISM for short.
PRISM led a tour at the Strauss Performing Arts Center, where for years students and faculty have heard music coming from empty practice rooms. (Kennedy, who studied music at UNO, said she has heard it herself.) The building was locked, so Kennedy and other PRISM members led a group of 20 amateur ghost hunters around the building.
The tool that measures electrical current found evidence only of an underground power line.
But the ghost box talked. Putting it in the simplest possible terms, the box is a modified AM-FM radio that continuously scans radio bands, picking up random sounds and words. Much of the time they sound like gibberish.
When the group reached the back of the building, Kennedy spoke to it.
“Why are you here?” she asked.
“Reason, memories,” the ghost box “responded.”
Kennedy said that was meaningful, though skeptics say ghost hunters could find meaning in whatever words it happened to say.
Kim Moy of Omaha was holding the box when it responded. She said she got chills.
She and her husband aren't experienced ghost hunters. But they attended the summit because they'd watched ghost-hunting shows on TV, and they had lost members of their family. They wanted to know that those loved ones were still out there.
“I think it's a comfort thing,” she said.
They also happened to win the summit's door prize — an overnight ghost hunting trip to the Squirrel Cage Jail, a favorite spot among the more experienced ghost hunters.
The jail is so popular it got its own session at the summit.
Carla Borgaila of the Historical Society of Pottawattamie County told summit attendees about some of the jail's more notable residents — a suspect in the still-unsolved 1912 ax murders of the Moore family in Villisca, Iowa; a widely known Council Bluffs madam; and one pregnant woman who gave birth to the jail's only infant inmate.
Borgaila said she has come to believe that at least some of those inmates, as well as other, less memorable ones, still live there.
Borgaila cheerfully talked about the spirit of a former warden who allegedly still patrols the catwalks of the 1885 building. A little girl searches for her mother, she said. Inmates rattle the bars of their cells, and their footsteps echo in empty corridors. An invisible cat yowls and aggravates Borgaila's allergies.
“Apparently, ghost dander is just as bad,” she said.
Sometimes, she said, the ghosts talk to her.
Some have told her to leave them alone, she said, though one asked for homemade cookies. The most menacing: “You're the one I want to terrorize.”
The audience, many clad in black T-shirts or hoodies sporting the names of area ghost-hunting groups, was enraptured, if not surprised. Many have spent the night in the Squirrel Cage Jail (Borgaila generally chaperones such excursions), searching for evidence of paranormal activity.
Kennedy gave a Powerpoint presentation of PRISM's findings during an overnight ghost-hunting trip to the jail. The evidence they accumulated included a grainy photograph of a man in old-fashioned clothing standing in a window, as well as audio recordings of heavy breathing, whispers, snippets of conversations, and one long, mournful yowl.
Eight groups presented their research during the summit. They also discussed tactics they employ to dissuade ghosts from following them home. (Many say a prayer at the end of a hunt or keep a rosary in their car.) They addressed the popularity of ghost hunting shows on television. (Consensus: They're unrealistic.)
To the uninitiated, it's a creepy business. Moy said she was somewhat nervous to spend the night at the jail.
But ghosts often get a bad rap. Many ghosts aren't sinister, Kennedy explained. They don't always haunt the places where they died. Oftentimes, she said, they revisit places they loved when they were alive, which would explain the music coming from the Strauss practice rooms.
And ghost hunters aren't necessarily morbid, she said. They're regular people with regular jobs who happen to believe in ghosts. In their spare time, they visit places like the Squirrel Cage Jail to search for evidence. Occasionally, someone will seek out their services — often a homeowner convinced his house is haunted.
Those clients are interested in the evidence, she said, but they're also often relieved just to talk to someone who believes them.
“A lot of people want to know that they're not crazy, honestly.”
 

UK: Family ghost hunt this half term

From Westerns Wards Gazette: Family ghost hunt this half term
Ever tried hunting for ghosts and ghouls? Well this Halloween in Fareham Town Centre you can.
Ten stores will be hiding ghostly secrets for families to find as part of a Ghost Hunt during the half term week (October 27 to November 3).
Children aged 14 years and under are invited to track them down and record the unique number on an application form in the free event.
First prize is an extra-large Elliott Bear donated by From the Heart, a family meal for four at Domino’s Pizza and a choice of two Pitkin’s Guides donated by Fareham Tourist Information Centre.
Completed application forms should be posted in the Ghost Post Box at the Tourist Information Centre, which is located in Westbury Manor. Closing date is November 6.
Around 84,000 application forms have been delivered to homes in the borough, but additional forms can be picked up from selected town centre venues – including Apollo Cinema, Civic Offices, Crown pub, Fareham Library and all participating outlets.
Look out for the ghoulish surprises in the following businesses: Alterations, Craft Crazy, Dancewear of Fareham, Fareham Tourist Information Centre, From the Heart, High Street Sweets, Jacks Fish & Chips, Pampurred Pets, Traction Kites UK and Whistlers.

Zak Bagans: On the trail with a ghost hunter

From MetroUSny:  Zak Bagans: On the trail with a ghost hunter

When Zak Bagans saw his first ghost  -- a woman at the foot of his bed in Detroit -- he knew he was part of a rare breed of people. But he was disappointed to see how lightly people were taking his experience.

"I was really getting aggravated telling this story to people," the host of "Ghost Adventures" on the Travel Channel says. "I'd tell the story and then we'd go eat a sandwich and that's it. I experienced something that is legit. And that put me on this quest and it changed everything about me after that."
The paranormal expert now seeks out spirits for a living, and he doesn't listen to the naysayers around him.

"The evidence that we are capturing now is not just flickering lights and door knocks," he says. "I want to welcome people that don'tbelieve and talk with them and show them the steps and have them accompany me on investigations."

Bagans says the ghosts that still linger on earth do so for a reason.

"[They] have something to say," he says. "There's something unsolved in their life, whether it's an unsolved murder -- they know who the killer is but the police never found out -- a lost love [who] died suddenly, they're in denial [about their death]. A spirit, I believe, is still trapped here is because they're not ready to move on. They want to keep living. Or they're dead and they're just stuck here, in purgatory, because they know that if they go to hell, it's gonna be worse."

And there's also a reason why they choose your particular home to haunt.

"It's still a fight of who owns the place. There's a living person there but there's a ghost that wants the living person out."

Are you haunted?

If you’re one of the “nine out of 10” who Bagans predicts has experienced some supernatural activity in your home, don’t panic, he advises.

“Just let it be, because I think that if you try and communicate with them, like what I do, then once they realize — like in the movie “Ghost” — that you can hear them, they will just bug you even more. If that’s what you want, get a digital recorder and talk with them. If you directly start communicating with them, they’re gonna know that they’ve gotten your attention. That’s what they’re trying to do — get your attention.”

The basic tools

“The evolution of technology, the engineers that we work with — electrical engineers that have worked at NASA — they are designing this equipment for us,” Bagans says.
   
Mel meter: It may look like a cell phone Zack Morris would have owned, but it’s really used to pick up electromagnetic energy. “Spirits are made up of energy. ... This can detect the energy. It’s like a metal detector.”
   
Digital recorder: Got one of these lying around? You can use it to talk to ghosts. Once you identify some inexplicable energy, record yourself talking to the potential spirit and play it back on a speaker. “These microphones will pick up sounds that we can’t hear,”?Bagans says. “They’ll pick up subfrequencies. And when spirits speak they can speak within these subfrequencies, in the white noise that’s generated by the recorders.”

 

What's that sound? NJ ghost hunters keep listening for signs

From My Central Jersey.com:  What's that sound? NJ ghost hunters keep listening for signs

They may not see dead people — but they certainly can hear or sense them.
As Halloween approaches, several area ghost hunters and paranormal experts will be making appearances to explain their craft and offer proof of what they say are real-life hauntings.
Garden State paranormal experts these days are about as ubiquitous as ghost-hunting television shows, including the long-running “Ghost Adventures” on the Travel Channel and “Ghost Hunters” on Syfy.
“We’re tripping over each other,” said Tom Petuskey, 71, an East Brunswick resident and member of Scope NJ, a paranormal research group founded in 2007.
“We are looking for scientific confirmation of paranormal events,” he said. “One of the things we try to do is see if there are natural causes for what’s happening.”
Scientists might balk at paranormal researchers’ techniques, but these ghost buffs use real equipment and adhere to what could be considered ghost-industry standards.
One of their favorite tools is a device found at any electronics store: an audio recorder.
Serious ghost hunters might shell out hundreds or thousands of dollars for complex and highly sensitive microphones and recording hardware. But Charles “Chuck” Lehman, 47, of Monroe makes do with a simple $70 recorder and free audio software Audacity.
The recorders are supposed to pick up what is known as electronic voice phenomena, or EVPs, which cannot be heard by the people in the room.
EVPs may be of ghosts whispering words like “hello,” or phrases like, “get out of here!”
Lehman, an amateur ghost hunter who likes to capture EVPs at historic battlefields and cemeteries, compares them to dogs picking up low frequency sound waves. He has clips of EVPs from cemeteries in Jamesburg and Bound Brook on his website, www.chucksghosts.com.
The ghost hunters say they don’t manipulate the recordings except to enhance the sound.
Petusky, whose group posts its evidence from investigations at www.scopenj.com, said in one instance his team couldn’t make out a garbled EVP from an investigation at a 1919 Manville home.