beekay

All right folks, I am deep into an haunted house investigation!

I started freelance writing recently and picked up an assignment to write about local ghosts and hauntings. (Background: I am a weekly columnist in my small-town newspaper and was a Marine combat correspondent for 12 years before that. I had the urge to get more into writing and so decided to try some freelance work.)

My goal is to AVOID the tired old retelling of the same old local ghost stories. I am going to write a more objective piece and try to cover all the bases from diehard ghost believer to diehard skeptic and everything in between.

There is a paranormal research group fairly close by. (Call themselves L.E.M.U.R.) I will be interviewing them. I am also trying to get some pastors and science professors to weigh in too, but am having only lukewarm luck there.

The gold nugget here so far, though, is the owners of a local home who claim their house is haunted have extended an open invitiation to me to come check it out.

One thing I need help with is the search for skeptics. Not having much luck here in town (Burke County, NC) and so I need to expand my search a little. If anyone knows of someone in Western NC that could help me out ... or I guess anywhere in NC will have to do .. I would appreciate it. Somebody with decent credentials is the goal here.

Anyways, this should prove to be interesting. I'll keep you updated as I get more into it.

Booooooooo!

The Lone Ranger

You might try contacting the <a href="http://www.wfu.edu/~ecarlson/tasc/" target="_blank">Carolina Skeptics</a>. I recall them sponsoring some interesting investigations when I was at Wake Forest University.

Naturally, there were always a few angry letters to the editor of the Winston-Salem Journal whenever someone from the Carolina Skeptics dared to challenge someone's favorite beliefs. I recall that I wrote a few critical letters to the editor myself, along with some members of the Carolina Skeptics, when the Journal published a wholly unskeptical article suggesting that crystals can be used to cure certain diseases.

Good luck,

Michael

Doubting Didymus

If you are going to investigate a haunted house, my advice is that you should not, under any circumstance, do it without the help of a professional stage magician or hoax artist. They will prove an invaluable resource.

ohwilleke

You have to understand your task. It isn't really to determine if there are or are not haunted houses. It is to tell stories about interesting characters in the community and colorful local history. The people who care about haunted houses are interesting people. Soak up who they are more than the actual haunting.

beekay

Yup, I am more about talking to the folks about ghosts in general rather than debunking any hauntings.

So far I have an interview scheduled at the haunted house Wed night.

I have an interview scheduled with the pastor of the local First Baptist Church on Thurs.

I am currently conducting an email and phone interview combined with the paranormal research leader.

All I feel I am missing right now is the skeptic -- the most important part! I shipped off some emails to various folks at the Carolina Skeptics and will follow up with a phone call later. Thanks for that link!!!!! Hopefully these folks can lend a hand.