Ghost Club Investigations
Creepy crawlers, black cats and ghostly tales are not the ingredients for a frightful Halloween for the Oklahoma City Ghost Club (OKCGC). More scary thoughts include electromagnetic spectrum readings, genetic movements and orbs.
For seven years the club has been probing dark corners, casting light in shadows and searching for what lies beneath the surface. Erik Smith, Director of OKCGC, will tell you the stance of the club is clear.
“We're not trying to convince anybody, we are just out there collecting all the data and then presenting it,” he said. “We put all of our findings together and let people draw their own conclusion.”
Some of the findings about the alleged hauntings inside the old vacant hospital stir up some mixed feelings around Guthrie, and around town you will find a combination of those who believe it to be haunted and those who don't.
The hospital’s beginnings go back to about 1903. “The whole idea about the hospital being haunted came about by a person who broke in one night. They claim to have seen a bunch of different things,” Smith explains. “That was when we were contacted, and what started out as going to be a one night sweep, turned out to be a five year project.”
Throughout the broken windows, the torn up floors and the collapsing ceilings, Smith noticed something constant about the hospital. “In spurts, it had it all. It had magnetic readings that would spike, it had sounds and temperature changes all at once,” he said. “Sometimes we would go six to nine months with nothing and then, all at once, we would have figures, shapes and forms.”
Some of the things that indicate a presence make a jump in the electromagnetic field meter (EMF). It has been theorized that ghostly beings are comprised of some form of energy that exists beyond the human body. Through the use of various EMF meters the OKCGC can test environments for unnatural EMF, readings and charged areas.
Another means of indicating a presence is by observing genetic movements. “This is the unexplained movement of an object, like a ball rolling across a room or a rock being thrown. We have had both of these happen to us during investigations,” Smith said.
One other unexplained occurrence at the hospital was the findings of voices on recordings. “ When we where inside, we did question and answer secessions, when we went back and replayed the tapes, there were voices on the tape that weren't there when we did the recordings.”
The club has developed a theory that if an occurrence happens too often or too little, it should be questioned. “That is the case with what we call orbs. Little moving specs that show up on video or on pictures that may or may not have been there originally,” he said. “In the hospital we were getting thousands and thousands of these and often there would be movement within them.”
Arming themselves with electromagnetic field meters, gaussmaters, video cameras and infrared thermometers, the ghost club is prepared to investigate your haunting suspicions. “Most of the time we are contacted and called to come out to a site. We just never know what the future is going to bring.”
Some previous investigations have taken the club to Fort Reno, Chilocco Indian School and UCO's Mitchell Hall. “We have been to many places, some have had very little to no activity and some are just hopping with activity.”
So if you have goblins in your attic and chains being drug around the floors in you basement, or if you would just like more information about the Oklahoma City Ghost Club, go to www.okcgc.net and check out some of the testimonials and videos.
