One purported Rhode Island “ghost” turned out to be a squirrel in the attic.
Another supposed spirit “appeared” when a scam artist told a client that the photography light meter in his hand was a ghost detector, according to the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group.
Less easily explained, some psychics insist, are ghosts believed by some to regularly haunt Benefit Street in Providence and Fort Adams in Newport.
Deceased writers Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft are among the spirits allegedly haunting Benefit Street. “Benefit Street is the most haunted street in America,” claims a local ghost hunter, Frederick Wilmott, while the spirits of children who died years ago are said to wander Fort Adams.
Indeed, such ghost stories abound in Rhode Island, which perhaps helps explain why the state is home to a host of entities and self-styled experts devoted to the paranormal and ghost hunting, including the Rhode Island Paranormal Academy and the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group.
While clearly a moneymaking venture for some, most ghost hunters find it hard to earn a full-time living from the work. Some groups do not even charge for their services; others do, but the business generally does not generate the kind of revenue that can support an individual or family.
Author, journalist and book publisher Paul F. Eno has studied the paranormal for more than 40 years, wrote five books about it and occasionally gives paid lectures.
Rather than ghosts from another world, the Woonsocket resident studies the concept of parallel universes that he says impinge on our own world. He calls what he does “cosmic journeys” rather than ghost hunts. “We try to present a deeper approach,” he said.
A deeper approach does not necessarily result in deeper pockets. “We make part of our living at it [paranormal work],” Eno said of himself and his son, Ben, a partner in the business. “We get by without too much trouble,” but paranormal earnings “are not a lot,” Eno said.
He and his son are regularly featured as paranormal experts on a CBS radio show, “Coast to Coast,” broadcast in Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh and Seattle, and he is working with a television producer, whom he declined to name, on development of a network television show in 3-D format based on his work.
New Hampshire natives Wilmott
and Christopher J. Bashaw – who say they are psychics – are co-founders of the R.I. Paranormal Academy and of RIGhostTour.com, an enterprise they started in April that offers walking tours of haunted sites in downtown Providence, including, of course, Benefit Street.
The city should be proud of having the most haunted street in the nation, they say. “Providence should hold that claim to its heart,” Wilmott said. But how to prove the spirits are real?
“Validation evidence is scant at best,” Wilmott acknowledged, “depending on your definition of ‘evidence.’ We have photos with images that appear to be ghostly, but Chris and I are not talking about seeing with the naked eye. It’s a matter of what you believe and what you feel. You can walk into a place and feel there are spirits there.”
Proof or not, polls show that many Americans believe in ghosts.
Ghost hunters are quick to cite a nationwide Harris poll conducted in 2003, which found that 51 percent of the respondents believe in ghosts. In November 2009, Harris updated its survey and found 42 percent say ghosts are real – that’s more than the 32 percent who believe in UFOs but less than the 60 percent who believe in the devil.
These believers comprise a large audience for the paranormal industry, helping to explain the popularity of television shows such as “Ghost Hunters,” produced by The Atlantic Paranormal Society based in Warwick.
Starting its eighth season in August, “Ghost Hunters” is the longest-running reality series on the SyFy (Science Fiction) network and is watched by about 2.6 million viewers, according to the network.
The one-hour show chronicles the ghost-hunting adventures of TAPS investigators Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson and their team, who travel around the country in search of spirits, and has sparked a number of spinoffs. Hawes and Wilson did not immediately respond to requests for an interview.
The two are heavily booked in an ongoing nationwide lecture series that will see them at The Stadium Theatre Performing Arts Center in Woonsocket on Sept. 29, their only scheduled Rhode Island appearance.
The Paranormal Academy website (www.ripacademy.com) sells ghost-hunting apparel and equipment through a link to Amazon.com, including a ghost-hunting camera for $140 and a deluxe ghost-hunting kit for $279. Bashaw and Wilmott say they receive no money from the sale of paraphernalia and they do not encourage clients to invest in what Wilmott dismissed as “all the bells, whistles and gadgets.”
Bashaw and Wilmott say they are not looking to get rich. “We just want to make sure the bills are paid,” Wilmott said.
Andy Laird, founder in 1984 and director of Paranormal Research Group, said his group does not accept payment for its services and, if someone insists, Laird said the money is turned over to charity.
He regularly lectures about the paranormal in Rhode Island, speaking each year at Bryant University for instance, and estimated his audiences usually number about 40 to 50 people. Monthly ghost-hunting sessions that he conducts at Fort Adams generally draw about 30 people, he said. The paranormal research group has about 12 members who are volunteers with full-time jobs elsewhere, said Laird, a full-time photographer.
Laird said his main goal is to educate the public about the spirit world and make the paranormal more accepted in mainstream society. He’s seen the popularity of ghost hunting rise and fall, recalling the last upswing of interest came in the late 1980s. “It comes in waves,” he said. “You can see how popular it is right now, but I’ve seen it like this before. It seems you hear about a new paranormal group forming every other week and, in a month, you never hear about them any more.”
Woonsocket’s Eno noted that people seem to take an added interest in the paranormal in tough economic times. “In times of economic stress, people run to the paranormal,” he said. “I think they’re looking for something stable in the hope of an afterlife. They’re searching for something better than what we have now.” •
