Spending Halloween weekend with the Georgetown Paranormal Society

Things going bump in the night? Are doors opening and closing by themselves? Do you feel someone stroking your hair when you are the only one home? How about those footsteps on the stairs?

Before you take yourself to the nearest mental health professional, you might consider calling paranormal investigators – yes, the real-life ghostbusters.

The Georgetown Paranormal Society has been investigating residences and buildings since 2005, and although the organization is small – it has just five members – it has been casting a wide net along the Low Country and even out of state..

The group’s two main researchers spent about 2 hours recently trying to suss out the reason that strange noises have been heard in a Georgetown historic house. Was it something from the spirit world or was there a more logical reason?

“We don’t have any preconceived ideas,” said Lloyd Williams, as he unloaded cameras, meters, monitors and recorders from the two metal cases he and Richard Kopcho have brought to the house.

“This is just a portion of the equipment that we own,” Kopcho explained. “For a house, this will be enough. For a site visit to the old Charleston jail, they brought in a whole van’s worth of equipment.

Whether a large or small project, the procedure is the same. The onsite researchers set up the equipment, on stairways, in the middle of rooms, on tripods with handheld devices wherever there have been reports of strange goings on.

When darkness falls, the team is ready.

“In the dark, your senses are heightened,” said Williams, whose wife, Lynn, and daughter, Paige, also are members of the society.

He grows silent as his partner, Kopcho, a tall man with long hair tied back in a ponytail, tries to engage the entity that may be lurking in the house.

“Do you like to walk up and down these stairs,: he inquires, staring intently at a monitor. “What is the last thing you remember? Do you like to scare the people who live in this building?” He gets no answer.

“In the middle of the floor is a machine,” chimes in Williams. “It is theorized that if you try to manifest yourself, the machine will go into the yellow, possibly the red, depending on how strong you are.”

All four people in the room gaze intently on the light that stays steadfastly green. No blink, no glimmer of yellow or red.

Williams and Kopcho continue to converse with the spirit that even they are not convinced exists.

They’ve heard the resident’s stories of doors opening and closing, of a sign that moves from one part of the house to another, of the television that switched itself off after a program. But they make no judgments. Their job is to gather the information. The whole group analyzes it before rendering a verdict. It could take two to four days or even longer to generate the report.

Suddenly, a yellow light starts to blink. Just for a second or two. But definitely a yellow light.

“We want to know that you are here. Can you make a noise for us?, asks Williams. There is nothing, just the sounds from other apartments, perhaps a Halloween movie.

“Do you like listening to the noise?’ inquires Kopcho, his voice steady, not at all accusatory, rather like a parent asking a reluctant child how his day was.

“Ok,” says Williams. “We’re going to go upstairs. Feel free to join us.”

Evidently something works. Next to the green light on the machine in the upstairs bedroom is an unmistakable yellow glow. And Williams says there is a definite temperature variation.

Neither of the researchers will give a thumbs up or down about the existence of a spirit in the house, but they did say that if there was something there – something from another dimension -- it likely was a child.

While the residents of the house did not have a history of previous residents, the prior research neither helps nor hinders a probe, said Williams.

Some site visits offer almost immediate answers the duo explains, but they won’t give answers until they check that the instruments confirm their observations.

“At the Charleston jail, there were people talking, walking, lot of them,” Kopcho said.

Another site visit made it clear that a stuck door had a logical explanation – the humidity in the house caused the door to stock.

The investigators don’t charge for their work, but they will gratefully accept donations. Odds are, they will buy more equipment.

This story was originally published October 29, 2016 at 4:57 AM with the headline "Spending Halloween weekend with the Georgetown Paranormal Society."