Got Ghosts?

SPOOKS, APPARITIONS, SPIRITS, SPECTERS, phantoms — ghosts.

 

Ghostly names are attached to Jacob Marley, kings Hamlet and Duncan, Beetlejuice, Casper, Slimer from “Ghostbusters” and Capt. Gregg from “The Ghost and Mrs. Muir.” They appear to us sensationally in books, plays, documentaries and Hollywood scripts. But do they appear to us more readily at Halloween?

No, is the unequivocal answer from two people who should know: Scott Walker and Ellen “Sprout” Dvorak, who founded Charlotte County’s Peace River Ghost Tracker 10 years ago.

“I don’t believe Halloween has any special affect on the ghosts,” Ms. Dvorak said. “They’re around all the time. Halloween has no bearing whatsoever.”

She admits that “metaphysical types will say the veil is thinner” on All Hallows’ Eve, which could give human beings a chance for a closer encounter.

KATHY GREY/ FLORIDA WEEKLY Sprout Dvorak, left, and Scott Walker formed Peace River Ghost Trackers 10 years ago. Still, she doesn’t subscribe to the theory.

“I think spirits are either trapped, or refuse to go on. They have unfinished business, messages to get out,” Ms. Dvorak said.

Her partner, Mr. Walker, took the unfinished business a step further. “I think it would be very interesting to go to a crime scene and do some audio and video recordings just after a death. Perhaps something might linger after a person passes. That would give clues to what happened.”

 

“My personal belief,” Ms. Dvorak said, “is that when somebody dies and they pass over, they get a weekend pass (to visit their loved ones).”

All in a night’s work

COURTESY PHOTO The Peace River Ghost Trackers photgraphed the apparition of a child kneeling (left of center) on the upper balcony of this structure in St. Augustine. Whether or not they believe in ghosts, most mortals have an ongoing fascination with the paranormal.

To Peace River Ghost Tracker, it’s all in a day’s — rather, a night’s — work.

As for the work, it doesn’t smack of the sensationalism depicted in “Poltergeist,” “Ghost” or in Shakespearean plays.

In truth, tedium far outweighs drama.

Following an investigation, members of the Peace River group review evidence: hours of video, audio and other recordings captured — or not — at multiple stations set up during an investigation.

That’s why potential clients are taken through a series of intensely detailed interviews prior to an investigation: fabricators must be weeded out.

Peace River Ghost Tracker’s work isn’t thankless, but it’s certainly not driven by monetary gain. The nonprofit group will accept donations of equipment and other tools needed for the work. Most times, they’re nourished with food and water — and invigorated by pots of coffee. Sometimes they’re offered shelter. But the rest of the work comes in the form of hours of pro-bono labor, travel, equipment, sundries and bait used to spark the interest of a spirit.

“We were the fourth or fifth (Florida ghost investigation) group started,” Mr. Walker said. “There have got to be a hundred of them in Florida. But they come and go. They don’t realize it’s an expensive hobby,” he said.

Trackers’ first steps

More than a dozen years ago, Scott Walker saw his grandfather. Nothing unusual there, except that his grandpa had been dead for more than a decade.

Driving down a Charlotte County road, Mr. Walker looked over and saw his grandfather in the car next to him. His grandpa smiled.

“He was turning before I could say, ‘Did I really see this?’” Mr. Walker said.

In subsequent encounters, he said “I’d see him standing in the middle of the road, just smiling.

“He has come to me in dreams several times on significant dates — an anniversary, a birthday. I’m not good with dates, but I’d tell my mom and she’d tell me it was the anniversary (of his death) or a special birthday.”

Without a hint of resignation, Mr. Walker said, “I haven’t seen him in a while. Maybe he’s done.”

But the sightings of his grandfather and other unexplained phenomena got Mr. Walker, 43, and his partner, “Sprout” Dvorak, 40, immersed in the businesses of paranormal investigation. Together, they formed Peace River Ghost Tracker.

The nonprofit alliance includes kindred spirits who serve to alleviate stress from people who believe that other-worldly energies are sharing their space and sometimes upsetting their peace.

“Some want you to come out because it’s cool,” Mr. Walker said. “We have to be extra careful we don’t get called out on bogus calls. Prospective clients are instructed to start a ghost log of dates, times and activities. “(Sprout) will ask the same question over and over to make sure the story isn’t changing.” If a caller warrants a visit, he or she is interrogated again before the investigation begins.

“People call you at four in the morning because they’re frightened. You’re a ghost hunter, psychologist, friend and grief counselor. You’re going into their house and they have to trust you,” Mr. Walker said.

Investigating ghostly phenomena may be a hobby for the members of Peace River Ghost Tracker — six members in all — but they take the work very seriously. Guarding client confidentiality with the same sanctity as medical practitioners and priests, they command — and return — respect. In fact, Peace River Ghost Tracker has earned a place of reverence among paranormal investigators around the state and in many parts of the country. Ten years into the business, the group has performed well over 100 investigations in more than 20 counties in the state of Florida, and in Georgia, Louisiana and North Carolina. Their expertise has been tapped for ongoing investigations in California and Texas. “If we can’t make it to a certain location in another state,” Mr. Walker said, “we will find a reputable group for them in that area.”

Sensory perception

Ms. Dvorak said spirits are close by, and not necessarily at Halloween.

Sometimes, she said, “You have strong feelings that someone’s around you. Or you catch the scent of perfume.

“I had my dad come to me about three days after he passed. It was scary at first. He crawled in my bedroom window, came over and hugged my mom goodbye and he hugged me. He was smiling.”

In another visit, Ms. Dvorak reported, “My aunt saw my dad sitting on the couch with his leg crossed, wearing the fedora hat he wore back in the day.”

These peaceful encounters give solace to the people who remain following the loss of a loved one.

But not all visitations from the after-world are benevolent.

The possession incident

The group’s most frightening encounter happened in 2003. The event is documented on its Web site (peaceriverghosttracker.com) as a possession case marked confidential. Details of the event are available, but the names of the people affected and the dead have been kept secret.

“It was a completely unexpected occurrence,” Mr. Walker said. “I said to myself, ‘holy crap, this can happen!’”

A group of 21 investigators were called that day to a reportedly haunted three-story building.

During the investigation, a member of the team became extremely ill.

“It happened to a girl who was very tired,” Mr. Walker said. “Her face morphed and she was almost like chanting. The sound was hard to explain.”

As the possession progressed, the girl began breathing heavily.

“Then this childlike laughter (came out of her),” Mr. Walker recalled, “and it turned into a man’s laughter.”

“All 21 people were affected,” Mr. Walker said. “I couldn’t talk. My tongue felt like it was swollen. We removed (the affected woman) from the building.”

Documented on the Web site, the case reads, “We were on the 3rd floor so we had to walk her down the staircase to the 1st floor. On the way down (about three minutes after the laughing occurred) a horrifying scream/yell came from her. Once we got her outside and out of the area, she was feeling better, although not remembering much of what happened.”

“I think she went to see a psychiatrist (afterward),” Mr. Walker said, “but she doesn’t want to hear it,” he said, referring to the Peace River Ghost Tracker’s Web sit that has a link to the audio recording. “(This was not (a case of) demonic possession,” he said, “but (of) multiple person inhabitation.”

“There is something called emotional transfer,” Ms. Dvorak explained. “The spirit is transferring its emotion over to you.”

“I think it was a very angry spirit,” Mr. Walker said.

“I had extreme nausea,” Ms. Dvorak said. “Watching this go on, I felt excitement, fear, awe. I didn’t sleep for a month. I heard that laughter every night. The more you think about something, the more you make it real. I was scaring myself. Then it just stopped,” she said. “It was a huge, huge learning experience.”

Parallel lives

Not all spirits are angry. The partners agree that ghosts manifest in the afterlife what they were in life: mad, mischievous or melancholy — happy, humble or harmonic.

In Sanford, Fla., the couple experienced more than three minutes of a female ghost singing hymns in a bedroom in what had been her home.

The group discovered that choir practice used to be held in the home’s living room in the late 1920s. A link to the recording can also be found on the site.

Physical upsets

Both Mr. Walker and Ms. Dvorak have experienced physical manifestations of spirit encounters.

“We were doing a combined investigation with another group and we walked into a Jack-and-Jill, where two rooms share a bathroom,” Ms. Dvorak recalled.

“Other investigators had strong experiences in the bathroom. One had the feeling someone committed suicide there. One saw a spirit and another saw blood everywhere,” she said. “So I went in. I felt nothing at first. When I stepped forward, I had this incredible feeling of dizziness — like blood loss. And I had this big smile on my face because, you know, I thought ‘this is cool!’

“Usually, the energy sticks with you five, 10, 15 minutes.”

“Sometimes it lasts a few hours,” Mr. Walker said. “I’ve had headaches, stabbing pain — but I’ve never been touched (by a ghost),” he said.

“Yes, you have! I can’t believe you forgot,” Ms. Dvorak countered.

“That’s right,” Mr. Walker recalled. It happened this year in early October at the Spanish Military Hospital in St. Augustine. Mr. Walker thought he might be able to attract a spirit by reclining in what had been the hospital’s mourning room.

“I lie down and ask questions,” he said. “I was playing the role of someone who was dying. I was saying, ‘I’m cold. I can’t feel my hand. Feel my hand.’ And something actually squeezed my hand. I wasn’t ready for it and is scared the crap out of me,” he said. “I wasn’t prepared for something to grab my hand.”

Investigators have had the chills, felt hot spots, heard knocks and gotten the feeling that the energy has been sucked out of the room.

Indeed, the pair talks about the ghosts they’ve met as breezily as they’d discuss an ornery aunt in Cincinnati and her eccentric cousin in Duluth. As the couple disseminates information about folks they’ve met from the other side, there’s humor, understanding, caution, kindness and most of all, respect.

Selective spirits

Not all spirits are forthcoming, however. The group uses bait to attract reluctant spirits. “In the old St. Augustine jail,” Ms. Dvorak said, “we used cigarettes. That brings them out.”

“We use trigger objects. For children, we use toys, though I’ve never had a ball returned to me,” Ms. Dvorak said, about hoping a ghost child would engage in play.

“For the opera house (in Arcadia), we used music from the ’30s.”

The group also uses what’s known as white, brown and pink noise to get ghosts’ attention — static sounds that play at varying pitches and intensities.

Also, ghosts seem to be attracted to some people more than others.

“They like Scott,” Ms. Dvorak said.

“Yeah,” Mr. Walker chucked. “I’m ghost bait.”

Investigative drudgery

Not all encounters are experienced at the time of investigation. Tedious work follows every investigation, as the team examines information captured during the investigation from technical equipment positioned to record sights and sounds and measure frequencies and variances in temperature.

“We do a four-hour investigation, and from that, we have 40-50 hours of video to watch from each piece of equipment. It’s not all glory. You have to come home and watch. And it’s monotonous. But we review everything in real time,” he emphasizes. “We don’t just fast forward, looking for movement.”

Electronic voice phenomenon — EVPs — most frequently deliver communication with the spirit world.

EVPs are captured and first heard post-investigation, when recordings are analyzed.

Investigators will ask spirits to answer questions during an investigation and hear nothing. It’s when the recordings are analyzed that they receive an answer.

“Our group works very tediously when doing our EVP sessions. We are respectful of the spirits and the clients as we try to obtain evidence of paranormal activity,” Mr. Walker said.

“Our average investigation runs four to six hours,” he said. “We have four cameras, four microphones and a DVR system, with digital recorders and Handycams,” he said. There are eight or nine cameras positioned throughout the site.

“The odd thing is that spirits will select the device,” Ms. Dvorak said. For instance, communication may be captured on only one of four instruments, when, technically, the anomaly should have been captured on all.

Because the equipment is hypersensitive, Peace River Ghost Tracker tends to work in small groups.

“If you let it get large, it gets confusing,” Mr. Walker said.

Too many people can “ruin the ambient sound — feet shuffling, tummies growling. It takes a lot of experience to hear the difference,” Ms. Dvorak said.

Integrity first

“These are not urban legends,” Mr. Walker stressed. “We treat every investigation with the highest respect. We are skeptical going into an investigation and we try to rule out and explain natural causes first,” he said.

“We are very, very thorough, and we have to be as sure as possible (before anything is reported to a client),” Mr. Walker said. “If we’re not certain, it doesn’t go into the report,” he said. “We write a report and ask if we can put it on our Web site, and if (the client) wants to make changes. Clients have asked us to delete some information because the response from the spirit was negative in a public place.”

Arcadia awakenings

In Charlotte County, there’s been little to report in the way of ghostly activity, though the trackers believe there’s much to be experienced.

“I tend to believe it is due to the generation,” Ms. Dvorak said. “They weren’t brought up to speak of such things. I’m sure there’s a lot here in Punta Gorda, but it hasn’t been reported,” she said.

Before Charlotte graveyards implemented dusk-to-dawn hours, the trackers captured the locally lost. And quiet investigations held in local historical spots have been prohibited from being publicized.

However, in Arcadia, Peace River Ghost Tracker has been welcomed for its solid reputation.

The opera house has been the subject of at least four investigations, both in the theater and in the shops upstairs. During investigations, trackers have experienced the smell of lemons — in the form of a woodcleaning product — and gum. “Fruit Stripe,” said Scott. “Bazooka,” countered Sprout.

“At one time, there were a lot of orphanages in Arcadia,” Ms. Dvorak explained. “They had what was called orphanage row.” And the children were allowed to attend shows at the opera house. The builder of the facility was J. J. Heard.

“What was the coolest thing,” Ms. Dvorak said, “was six months ago, a long-lost relative of J. J. Heard contacted us — the great, great grandson of J. J. They were doing family research and they typed in ‘opera house.’ They went to historian Howard Melton, and we, as a paranormal group, were able to spend a day with this historian, and another day walking the streets and talking to people.” Their independent research provided historical information for the family.

Most recently, an investigation at Arcadia’s Plaza Hotel and Desoto Restaurant, built in 1927, rendered solid evidence. Employees of the restaurant had reported ghost encounters, so Peace River Ghost Tracker conducted an investigation in June. The investigation is ongoing, but evidence will soon be presented on the Ghost Tracker’s Web site.

“During the main investigation, we got three pieces of evidence,” Ms. Dvorak said.

On the second floor, in the uninhabited hotel, an EVP delivered the message, “Look at me.”

“Another was from team member Lori’s personal experience,” Ms. Dvorak said.

Downstairs, the Desoto’s security system is set to beep three times when a person enters, and the message “front door” is communicated.

“Lori asked (the spirit), ‘Can you open the door? Are you strong enough?’ The lobby door beeped as if someone was coming through it. It just beeped once,” Ms. Dvorak said, “and the door shook violently.

“It took a lot of (spirit) energy to do that,” Ms. Dvorak said.

During the door’s shaking, a camera positioned eight feet away captured the scene. But another member’s camera, set just 10 feet away, captured just the beep and not the shaking.

“They choose who they want to communicate with,” Ms. Dvorak reiterated.

Ms. Dvorak and her partner Mr. Walker are pretty sure that ghosts frequent the Desoto. But they don’t let it detract from their everyday mortal existence.

“It’s a great place to eat,” Ms. Dvorak said, “especially if you love home cooking.” 

numbers

>> Peace River Ghost Tracker members

• Lori takes notes and conducts base readings and notes from electro magnetic field monitors and a Pyrometer, which reads ambient air temperature.

• Toni is the still photographer of the group. Craig, Tom and Scott are the technicians who set up the host of equipment required for a full investigation.

• Sprout Dvorak co-founded the group with her life partner of 23 years, Scott Walker. She manages communication for the group and attends every investigation, sometimes with the couple’s dog, Sawyer. Sprout works seasonally at the LTM Halloween store at U.S. 41 and Enterprise Drive in Port Charlotte. She has reported no spooks there.

• For more information, visit peaceriverghosttracker. com.