Ghost Story: Paranormal Investigators Track Down Northern Michigan Spooks

Do you have spooky things going bump in the night at your home? Relax. It‘s probably just a ghost. To find out for sure, a trio of Northern Michigan ghostbusters are now offering their psychic services to sense the offending spirit, and hopefully, send it packing.
“We are a team of psychic/medium ghost hunters who take our work very seriously,“ reads a recent ad in Northern Express. The ghost hunters promise to track down the source of a number of hair-raising experiences such as weird noises or voices in the night; lights or appliances that turn themselves off and on; objects that move on their own; and sightings of apparitions, shadows, or unexplained lights.
It turns out that being a ghostbuster is something of an invisible occupation in itself. Members of the trio don‘t want their full names used in this story to avoid hassles with cranks. “We don‘t have a home base because we all have separate jobs and separate lives,“ says Eve.
But Eve and her co-workers are dead-serious about their avocation and all have experienced ghosts and psychic phenomena first-hand. They‘ve investigated a number of haunted homes in Northern Michigan over the past year and say that there‘s no shortage of spirits in the region.
So, read on, gentle reader... if you dare!

EVE‘S STORY
“I‘ve been sensitive since I was a kid and have had visitors come to me,“ says Eve, a woman from Benzie County in her mid-30s who is the newest member of the ghost hunters. “The latest visitor was a very profound experience. I woke up with someone sitting on my bed, rubbing the hair out of my eyes.“
Eve says that she is clairvoyant in a number of senses, but doesn‘t do channeling, which involves bringing a spirit into one‘s body.
“Every person who‘s sensitive has a different sensitivity,“ she notes. “I get vibrations, like how you feel when you hum -- it‘s almost like electricity. The hairs go up on my arms and I can feel the spirit there.“
Does she enjoy her encounters with spirits?
“That depends on whether it‘s good or bad. A lot of it has to do with the person‘s personality in life, or if they‘re frustrated and stuck here.“
What are ghosts?
“I characterize them as people who for one reason or another haven‘t crossed over,“ Eve says. “It may be because they‘re attached to a house or someone they love or someone they‘ve lost, or because they‘re confused. They may also have unfinished business on earth or fear of religious persecution -- they may fear they‘re going to burn in hell, so they don‘t go.
“I‘ve had two near-death experiences and I can tell you firsthand that there are choices after death and spirits can get totally stuck and confused,“ she adds.
Eve believes she got her psychic powers from her mother‘s side of the family, which was of Native American heritage and included a number of seers and natural healers. “My mother used to say I had a door left open.“
When ghosts come to the living, it‘s usually because they want something, but don‘t know how to express it. In Eve‘s latest and most vivid encounter, she woke up in the dark with a spirit sitting on her bed, caressing her head. She told the spirit four or five times that she was frightened and asked it to leave.
“I think it was a person seeking help,“ she says. “I can look back now and say that this is a person who wanted to talk. I had a friend who died several weeks prior and it could have been him, but the room was dark, so I don‘t know.“
Eve has had ghosts come to her while she‘s sleeping. “They‘ll come to me while I‘m in a state of unconsciousness and I‘ll know it when I wake up. I can feel it when they come -- it‘s a buzz feeling.“ She felt that buzz in her latest encounter. “I broke out of it for a second and then got sucked back into the buzz,“ she recalls. “Then I got the lights on and was able to get to the kitchen for a drink of water.“
She says the ghostbusters try to rule out other possibilities before they do a home investigation. But if it‘s a go, she enters the home and seeks out pictures and strange vibrations. “I try to make a connection and talk abou the options and what might have happened in their life.“
She says there are plenty of ghosts to go around.
“I think that a lot of this (haunting) goes on, but people are reluctant to come out and talk about this kind of thing. But it‘s not something new -- this has been going on for as long as people have been dying -- there are hauntings everywhere.“

JOY‘S STORY
“I‘ve been doing this since I was four years old, and I‘m 40 now, so it‘s been quite awhile,“ says Joy, who works in the field of commercial law enforcement.
Joy grew up on a haunted farm in Minnesota where weird screams, noises, open doors and dead cats in the basement were commonplace. She was identified as being psychic at the age of seven when her mother was contacted by one of the state‘s top psychic investigators who worked with Minnesotan police on a number of cases. “She became my mentor and teacher and taught me everything about life, death and spirituality,“ Joy recalls.
Joy also encountered a lot of extraterrestrial activity on her family‘s farm, including strange triangular flying objects and burn marks in the cornfields and around the house. “We had ball lightning come so close to the house that it would rattle the windows.“
Ghosts manifest themselves according to the degree of energy they receive from the observer, Joy says. “It depends on how much energy you‘re willing to send to them. I‘ve seen everything from little firefly sparks to fully materialized spirits.“
On a cross-country trip with her parents in the ‘80s, she walked into a cafe and encountered a woman in her mid-20s wearing a dress that flowed to the floor. “She looked at me, smiled, and faded away,“ she says, adding that the manager knew nothing about the woman. “It was very chilly in the room -- there‘s usually a change in temperature because their spiritual residue tends to alter the environment.“
Joy taught classes in pyschic awareness in the ‘80s and has skills in hypnotic regression, rune oracle readings, and channeling spirits. A resident of Traverse City for the past year-and-a-half, she says her side business as a ghost hunter involves an intitial screening to determine whether a haunting is actually taking place. “I‘ve been to a couple of places with extraordinary spiritual and E.T. activity,“ she says. “I make contact with the spiritual entitites and try to have them cross over. My function is to go there and remove the spiritual energy from the hosue to find a way to manage it.“
Moneywise, there is no set fee for ghostbusting. “Sometimes we don‘t charge if people are strapped for cash or it‘s an emergency,“ Eve says. “Usually, we have clients volunteer a price.“
She‘s seen a few ghosts. “Sometimes you just get a strange feeling about someone in a car or a store and you look at them again and they‘re gone,“ she says. “It takes extra energy for them to materialize, but I‘m convinced that everyone has seen a spirit, but may not realize it.“

For information on de-ghosting your home, call the ghost hunters are 231-947-0108. View On Our Website