October is known as the spookiest month of the year, and some people say there’s less of a boundary between what’s normal and the supernatural.
That includes a team of investigators based in mid-Michigan called Ghost Contact Paranormal. They may not always be busting ghosts, but they have collected what they say is proof of spirits are still among the living .
Holt resident Benjamin Strongwolf said he used to consider himself a skeptic when it came to the paranormal, but that changed about four years ago when he was talking a walk and tried to speak to the spirit of a woman killed in the area in the 1980s .
"I went to a local park and was walking around and caught a female spirit come through my camera. "
Strongwolf said he and his wife created Ghost Contact Paranormal to conduct investigations across the Midwest.
Their team has traveled to both known haunted locations like the U.S.S. Edson in Bay City and the Stimson Hospital in Eaton Rapids as well as to the homes of people who say they’re dealing with malevolent spirits, offering their services for free.
"Our first goal is to try to debunk any claim that or experience that they're having, to try to comfort them, and if need be, if there's activity in their home, we have the means to actually remove the spirit," he said.
Strongwolf said that can involve using their team's medium to connect with spirits or cleansing the location. When it comes to debunking spirits, he said it can often be electronic devices like smart speakers emitting energy into the space to make it feel haunted.
"I say this for anybody that has an Alexa device, if you feel like somebody's staring at you, it's the energy that those things are inputting into the air."
One of their most recent investigations took Strongwolf to the Mason Area Historical Museum. He said he captured what might have been a shadow figure on camera as well as what he says was the voice of a spirit.
"I first heard what sounded like somebody upstairs saying hello, and no one else heard it. There wasn't anybody upstairs," he said.
"When I went back and pulled the recording off my camera, you can clearly hear somebody going, 'Hello.'"
Strongwolf said it might be natural to doubt what he’s experienced, but he said sometimes cynics are the best paranormal investigators
"If there's anybody that's super skeptic, all I say is, join us on a couple investigations, and we'll prove you wrong there," he said.
Strongwolf said he plans launch a series of solo investigations looking for spirits in woodland areas.
