Ghost Stories
Senior Joey Hansell has been going on ghost hunts since he was in high school. He has participated in more than 20 hunts all around Indianapolis and Royal Center, Ind.
“I got really into ghosts when I was a kid. It just fascinated me,” Hansell said.“ It’s just interesting that in one way it kind of shows that there are forms of existence after you pass on. Also I kind of just have a curiosity.”
Hansell has gone on ghost hunts with different groups like the Indiana Ghost Doctors, but prefers to go on hunts with a group of friends that share his interest. Tape recorders and digital recorders are some tools that he uses, but his tools of choice are his own senses.
“If you don’t have the equipment you see on TV, you can just use your eyes and ears and you can experience it,” Hansell said. “You’ll see things and hear things and those are the basic tools.”
HIS EXPERIENCES
Some ghosts, if you come looking for them, won’t show up. Others, want your attention, so they’ll make noises, or you’ll hear a whisper in your ear or see something.
We’ve had multiple different experiences. We’ve heard voices. We’ve seen things. We’ve taken pictures and seen orbs, which a lot of paranormal investigators say are spirits. We’ve had strange mists. We’ve had some interesting things that we’ve recorded. We went to an old friend’s house and asked “What do you want us to do?” and on the tape recording you hear, “Get out.” It was pretty interesting. Whoever it was, was not happy we were there.
One time, a person did get possessed. It was more like a partial possession. We were out to this cemetery known for a demonic presence. It was known for cultists and devil worshippers going there. We usually try to avoid these areas, but with this one, we weren’t warned ahead of time about some of the demonic spirits. So we went there and what happened was we were investigating, and one of the people who came with us started getting a cold chill.
We just kept walking and figured there was a presence nearby. Suddenly, my friend started feeling sick and started acting weird. Some possessions aren’t like what you see on the Exorcist—you’ll feel very sick and very drained just like you’re going to pass out. I call this one a partial possession, because he was aware in some form, he was possessed, because he just kept feeling emotions that weren’t his or thinking things that weren’t his thoughts. It wasn’t demonic, though.
Apparently, someone was killed at the cemetery. He kept getting the feeling of trying to escape and trying to warn us, and we kept feeling like we were being watched while he was under possession. We decided to investigate more, and that’s when it got a little creepy.
We started hearing strange noises, like growls. You could feel something bad was there the farther we went in. So right when we were about to leave, we heard this really loud noise and recorded it on our tape recorder and did a playback and decided we needed to get out of there because it was getting a little bit more active.
As we left, we started hearing more footsteps in the grass moving faster toward us. We hurried up and left, and the guy who was with us who got partially possessed – he felt relieved that we had left and that we had gotten out of the area as fast as we could. I would like to go back there, yet don’t want to, because I don’t know what to expect.
HAUNTED CAMPUS
I’d like to investigate Esch Hall and Good Hall. Also, a lot of people have told us there’s a spirit of a woman in Ransburg, and we’ve had things happen while working on theatre sets that make it seem like there’s a presence there. We’ve been told that it’s the spirit of a woman who likes playing tricks on people, who will come up and tug on your clothes, which has happened to me before a few times.
I’ve been pushed once, and stuff has been moved around. In the basement of Esch Hall, apparently there are shadow people. Some people have a theory that they are evil spirits. A former student told me she was downstairs in the theatre department after midnight and saw a dark beam where the dressing rooms and scene shop used to be. She saw it, and it started coming toward her, so she ran for the elevator and shut the door. As soon as she reached the elevator and the doors closed, she heard a scream and a bang against the door.
The second place is Good Hall. From what I’ve heard, that used to be the old medical and nursing school on campus, and they used to store the cadavers in the basement. Last year, when a paranormal investigator came here, she took a group of us down there, and there were too many people. But I kept getting a residual of a person walking up and down the hallway in the basement area. From what she told us, spirits are either drawn to the basement or the highest floor of a building.
HIS ADVICE
Keep an open mind. When you keep an open mind, you’re more open to experiencing paranormal activity. Be careful what locations you explore. Make sure you research the area, because you don’t know what you could get into.
