If there’s a ghost haunting the historic Grooms Tavern in Clifton Park, he or she will be exposed on Friday, Oct. 7, when local ghost hunter Jeff House presents a Halloween program as part of the town’s First Friday series.
“We always look for something around Halloween that’s appropriate,” said John Scherer, town historian.
House considers himself a legitimized ghost hunter. He’s got the equipment seen on popular television shows and investigates local haunts to detect paranormal activity.
“I believe there’s a marriage between natural instincts and the scientific end of it,” said House. “Marry those two together and it’s really concrete answers to what you’re looking for.”
He didn’t always hunt ghosts. It wasn’t until 10 years ago, when he experienced strange occurrences in his apartment in Saratoga Springs.
“Hairdryers turning on by themselves, unexplained shaking of a bed where it was very noticeable and almost felt like a small earthquake,” said House. “Things like that that really started to pique my interest and make me really wonder about what existed paranormally.”
House’s curiosity led him to a local ghost-hunting group (he’s no longer involved with them) where he became familiar with the proper equipment and techniques.
“That’s where I got my feet wet with it,” said House.
House works with an infrared video camera that allows him to see infrared and ultraviolet light the eye can’t pick up. He carries an EMS protector that measures electric fields (a high reading is said to mean a ghost is present and drawing off the energy) and a digital voice recorder.
“A lot of times, a ghost is trying to make contact and can speak very minimally and otherwise in sentences that can’t always be picked up by human ears,” said House.
His favorite ghost hunting experience was at Bulls Head Inn in Cobleskill where he caught several voices on the voice recorder and communicated with ghosts through a flashlight exercise.
“You take a flashlight and put it up on an area or table where it’s not moving around. You ask questions and ask it to turn on or off based on the answer,” said House. “We had an hour’s worth of direct questioning and answering with the flashlight turning on and off by itself. I had a fork thrown at me when no one was near. It was a very interesting experience.”
Another ghostly run-in that sticks out was at a private residence in Schenectady.
“They were having some really bad experiences and I went in there and a group member [of mine] was physically touched by this,” said House. “We believe it to be a demonic entity because it was actually making some sort of signs on his forehead that looked like welts, raised skin, very red, that just came out of nowhere and within 20 minutes they were gone. That was pretty intense.”
House said he’d like to hunt the Canfield Casino in Saratoga Springs, a site known to have active paranormal activity.
He said he realizes many people won’t believe in his ghost hunter findings or that ghosts exist at all.
“It’s easy to dismiss because a lot of times the fear of the unknown or that something could exist, it makes you not want to believe and makes you question what experience you did have,” said House. “It’s important to know there could be something out there that exists beyond what we see every day … I truly am a believer.”
It doesn’t take much to sway a non-believer, said House.
“It only takes one scary experience for someone to become a believer, whether they hear a voice, see something move, it really terrifies people and rightfully so,” said House.
That’s where his ghost hunting comes in handy, said House, as an education tool to help people understand what paranormal activity means.
He hunts ghosts to find answers to his many questions, but there’s one House still hasn’t answered and isn’t sure he ever will.
“What does [paranormal] mean to life as we know it? Why ghosts exist is a very deep thought because there’s certain explanations for why they exist,” said House. “There are questions that are obviously unanswered at this point and that’s what everyone is in search of.”
On Oct. 7 at 7 p.m. at Grooms Tavern, House will demonstrate how to use his ghost hunting equipment and share some of his most interesting experiences. Doors open at 6:45 p.m. and the event is open on a first come, first seated basis.
