October 31, 2003, 8:53 a.m.
Ghosts on Speed Dial
Haunted in the afterlife.

RICHMOND — After Hurricane Isabel tore up the town a few weeks ago, some Richmonders were abuzz with stories that the storm had raised a few residents of Hollywood Cemetery from their graves. Hollywood is a famous bone yard, with two U.S. presidents and one president of the Confederacy interred within, along with several thousand other folks. Word was that coffins had been pried from graves by the rising root balls of downed trees. Further word had it that skeletons had been freed from their boxes and could be seen lounging about the grounds.

While many Americans might shield their eyes from such a spectacle, down here the first thought is to grab the camera and make tracks to the scene. As it happens, this tale turned out to be an urban legend. But it did underscore the fact that in Dixie we don't wait for Halloween to spend time with the deceased. Indeed, if they don't come to see us, we often go looking for them.

Patrick Burns, for example, heads to a graveyard or other ghostly site once a month in search of disembodied spirits. Burns is founder of the Atlanta-based Ghost Hounds, whose motto might be: You can die, but you can't hide. I talked to him Tuesday; the night before he and a group of associates had spent the entire evening tracking ghosts at a restaurant called Anthony's. They weren't necessarily after Anthony's spirit; they'd been put on the hunt by other "paranormalists" who had photographed a "ghost cat" sitting at the top of a flight of stairs.

"We collected what we call EVP — Electronic Voice Phenomena," Burns said. The process is simple: "You walk around with a cassette or digital recorder and ask questions such as, 'Is anyone here?' 'What's your name?' Later we replay the tapes and see if there are any responses." Well? "There was quite a bit of activity." One ghost could be heard to say, in a whisper, "Please turn that off. Quit crowding around." In another case, Burns reports, there was a loud sigh. "The ghosts clearly weren't very happy that we were there."

Others might say the ghosts weren't so keen on being there either. While hanging around a restaurant beats cooling your heels at a graveyard, neither is quite heaven. Burns is accustomed to skepticism, and quickly admits there may be alternative explanations of ghostly voices and other spirit-related phenomena, such as sudden temperature drops of 30 degrees or more. But he says he's seen ghosts on three different occasions. He's also convinced that "most people, deep down, believe in ghosts" — perhaps especially southerners.

"I'm from the midwest, and out there you will tell people about ghosts and they'll say, 'That's very interesting.' In the south, they'll say that's interesting, and then they'll tell you their own ghost tale." This could be due to the region's strong religious nature. Burns says his belief in ghosts is "very reassuring of my spirituality, of my belief in the existence of the human soul in an afterlife." Whatever the reason, the contemporary view of ghosts is quite inclusive. There are human ghosts and dog ghosts, and Burns says there may even be ghosts in ordinary machines, noting one sighting of a "phantom car."

Interest in ghosts is hardly restricted to the south. An Internet site (cyberspace is much haunted), GhostStudy.com, which is associated with ghost hunters in Sacramento, offers, among other things, a live "ghost cam." There are many ghost-picture galleries, including an intriguing image below the caption "Main raising [sic] out of the grave!" The photo was reportedly snapped one night at Good Luck Cemetery in Lanoka Harbor, N.J., and does look something like a human being, albeit one that seems to have passed through the bowels of the earth.

At www.paranormal.com one finds interesting information: "Ghosts have no real need to be in a bathroom — yet almost anyone who's lived in a haunted house will tell you it's the spookiest spot." Elsewhere we learn that dogs are clued in to this phenomenon: "Many breeds of dogs have very strong senses of smell, and will often zero in on the source of the smell. . . . If a police officer can use a K-9 unit to sniff out bombs or drugs, then we can use a trained dog to sniff out the source of those foul odors that often come in haunted places. Once the dog gets the scent, they'll look for the source." And if they don't find a ghost, they may at least find a cool drink of water.

Washington is full of spooks, at least according to www.dchauntings.com. There are ghosts in the Supreme Court, the White House, the Library of Congress, and the Capitol building, where an apparent snooze-buster has been known to operate: "About five years ago, a police woman was working third shift. She went into the lounge to take a nap on her lunch hour. She was shoved by unseen hands off the sofa and onto the floor." That may have been Brother Kennedy, looking for a place to lay his . . . well, whatever. There's also a "demon cat" running around, though the belief remains that the real spooks in town are made entirely of flesh and blood.

Ghost hunting is more than a passion. It's also a business. At Ghosthunterstore.com one finds "cell sensors," "gaussmeters" and this historical footnote: "Voices from beyond can easily be recorded using a regular cassette tape recorder with an external microphone. The discovery was made in 1959 by Friederich Jurgenson, a Swedish researcher, and it started a wave of interest in this field. . . . Mixed with the background sound, the wind shaking the leaves in the trees, it was possible to hear the conversations of people who were not visible in the place where the recordings were made." Talcum powder is also a ghost-hunting tool: It can help one detect movement. Dowling sticks, when operated properly, can lead one to a ghost. Geiger counters round out the arsenal.

Back in the south we may snigger at some of these tales, but we also recognize that many of this world's finest citizens have believed in ghosts, goblins, and demons. Even Mark Twain, who was not much of a supernaturalist, observed that he'd take heaven for its climate and hell for its society. Burns says the list of true believers includes Nancy Reagan, the Clintons, Hans Christian Andersen, and Abe Lincoln. "Thomas Edison is rumored to have been working on a device to communicate with dead just before he died," he adds.

One hopes that idea won't be taken too far. Otherwise, we may one day stand in danger of being paged in the afterlife.

Put me on the no-call list.

— Dave Shiflett is a member of the White House Writers Group.