Ghost hunters hit Good Ground in search of paranormal

As the sky grew dark and the threat of rain mounted, a small group of paranormal investigators and enthusiasts ventured into an East End cemetery with hopes to contact and document denizens of “the other side.”

Erica Popino, lead investigator of the Holtsville-based Island Ghost Investigations, also known as IGI, and founder of the Paranormal Activity Study Team, or PAST, had planned to investigate Good Ground Cemetery in Hampton Bays a week earlier, but inclement weather delayed her public ghost hunt until an evening in late June.

Beginning at about 8:30 p.m., and armed with flashlights, digital audio and video recorders, and infrared cameras, six ghost hunters walked along rows of tombstones attempting to document evidence of the afterlife. The group spent the evening switching between respectful silences—interrupted only when calling upon the dead—and lighter moments of social chatter, laughter, and talk of paranormal theory and real-life ghost stories among friends.

“PAST is a group of 100 people,” Ms. Popino said, explaining her paranormal social network, at the same time peering into the landscape of graves and thick darkness around her—the orange glow of Hampton Bays creeping above the horizon. “Island Ghost Investigations has nine [members]—that’s a private group,” she said, adding, “We tend to do more serious investigations.”

Clearly passionate about her work, Ms. Popino’s IGI group helps people on Long Island with their haunted homes and businesses free of charge, whether the claims turn out to be legitimate or not. But PAST is something quite different.

“We do monthly public ghost hunts,” she said during a phone call last week. Ms. Popino, a 42-year-old single mother of two, said the Hampton Bays investigation was a PAST event, adding that while she’s heard no specific claims of ghostly activity, Good Ground Cemetery is a safe outdoor area on Long Island where novices can learn without their inexperience adversely affecting a family or business in need of their services. While PAST is a social network, it’s also a learning group for “newbies”—people who are ghost enthusiasts rather than seasoned investigators, she explained, remarking, “There are a lot of thrill seekers out there.”

Ms. Popino was joined at Good Ground by two IGI members, Mike Taylor and Diane Kinstel—a couple who met during a PAST event at the Fire Island Lighthouse—as well as PAST member and Southampton resident Peggy Vetrano, Southampton ghost hunter Lars King, and his girlfriend, Jen Hershon, who was out for her first investigation.

As she readied her digital video camera in a parking lot near Good Ground, anticipating the evening ahead, Ms. Hershon said she was nervous that fear might set in. But as the investigation progressed, she appeared relaxed and fit easily with the group.

“This, to me, is a walk in the park,” the more seasoned Mr. Taylor said, explaining that of the many investigations he’s conducted, encounters with “the other side” in graveyards are generally the most benign.

“I find you don’t get scared until afterward,” Ms. Popino said, noting that in the midst of a paranormal experience she’s focused on the matters at hand. Later, she explained that showing fear while investigating is not an option. IGI seeks answers about the afterlife, but the group is also dedicated to helping comfort and reassure the haunted people who call upon them for help.

When she was young, Ms. Popino, like many in the field, had a terrifying encounter with a spirit. At age 15, she said, she awoke in the middle of the night to find what appeared to be a young man standing over her, smiling. Ms. Popino struggled unsuccessfully to move or scream, and after a brief but seemingly endless pause, the entity “vaporized.” It was her first brush with a hidden world that she’s sought to understand ever since.

“I’ve been doing this since high school,” she said, though she acknowledged that IGI has been active only since April. Ms. Popino and her colleagues were in another group for a couple of years, but after it disbanded they formed the team they have today.

In a short period of time, IGI has managed to conduct numerous investigations all over the Island. In addition, Ms. Popino and Mr. Taylor regularly appear as guests on WRCN radio’s morning show with DJs Dave and Glenn for a live segment called “Dead Time.” The DJs joined IGI shortly after they recorded their first segment. Ms. Popino was also asked by Newsday to be featured in a monthly paranormal video and recently appeared on the popular paranormal podcast “The Ghost Chronicles.”

Ms. Popino said she welcomes the attention and recognition for her years of hard work.

Moving to a secluded area of Good Ground Cemetery, farther from Montauk Highway and the sound of passing cars, the group sat in a circle and began speaking directly to any ghost that might be around to listen. Mr. Taylor explained that he hoped to record an “EVP,” or electronic voice phenomena.

According to the ghost hunters, spirits can communicate by imprinting their voices on various recording devices. Mr. Taylor is IGI’s resident audio and EVP expert, and he has spent much of his time and money perfecting his equipment and studying the nature of the unexplainable recordings.

“He’s an audio genius,” Ms. Popino said, explaining later that members of her group tend to use a preferred piece of equipment. She travels light, often with only a camera and small flashlight mounted to her ubiquitous black baseball cap, while Ms. Kinstel leans toward videography.

At Good Ground, Ms. Kinstel often wandered off on her own, the beam of her flashlight occasionally noticeable some 50 yards away, bobbing up and down among the headstones as she documented names, epitaphs and inscriptions in the aged stone. Presumably, Ms. Kinstel hoped her solitude might attract Good Ground’s otherworldly hosts.

Mr. Taylor brought two digital recorders of the sort that are often used for dictation. “One for redundancy,” he said, adding, “A lot of times you record something and you think it’s an EVP, you check the other recorder and you find out, no, it was so and so.”

On its website, IGI notes that while members keep an open mind, they approach all their evidence, experiences and claims of activity with a healthy dose of skepticism. According to IGI, finding natural explanations for seemingly unnatural occurrences is important when investigating a haunting. A frightened family might get carried away and believe every banging pipe or creak of wood during fluctuations in humidity is a malicious ghost cavorting in the basement or attic. Often this is not the case, even if there is an initial incident that’s legitimately paranormal, Ms. Popino explained.

As an experiment, the microphone jack on one of Mr. Taylor’s recorders was custom-fitted with a germanium diode, which acts as a valve for electricity and stops all sound from entering the recording device. If an EVP materialized on the recorder with the diode, he said, it would help explain the nature of how disembodied voices are transmitted from the other side.

Some researchers believe spirits are psychically imprinting information on cameras, film and recorders, Mr. Taylor explained, noting that with a standard microphone setup, background noise and other audio pollutants could be mistaken for a garbled communication.

Mr. King snapped photographs with a long outdated plastic Holga film camera often used by fine arts photographers. As well as providing a format for striking images, he said that Mr. Taylor’s psychic imprint theory also applies to still photography, and he uses the Holga because film might be easier for a spirit to manipulate than digital electronics.

Mr. Taylor syncs both audio devices in order to determine the context in which a voice might be imprinted as well as to provide a second opportunity to catch evidence should the psychic imprint theory prove wrong.

“Hello! If there’s anyone here, we’re just a group of people, just inquisitive, trying to document your presence,” Mr. Taylor said aloud, commencing with the EVP session. “This is all for scientific purposes. We’re not here to harm you or this beautiful cemetery.”

All six investigators introduced themselves and asked questions at random as if trying to coax a shy visitor to speak up and interact. Their words evaporated into the night, always followed by periods of quiet to allow something to respond. Not one person appeared uncomfortable speaking to an imagined or invisible listener.

Questions ranged from simply asking for a name, or what year the spirit believes it to be, to slightly more creative inquiries aimed at getting some kind of reaction. “How do you feel about the changes to the community since you’ve been here?” Ms. Vetrano asked, clearly aware as a Southampton local of what might get a voice from the past to speak its mind. Throughout the evening, she would pause, claiming to detect a shift in the energy around her, usually shrugging off the feeling moments later.

Ms. Vetrano is a PAST member but is seeking to join a more serious group, according to Ms. Popino, who noted that IGI is not currently accepting new members.

Small American flags planted at the foot of many tombstones whipped in the wind, causing group members to mistake them for anomalous movement, shadows or sounds. Every person at Good Ground, from Ms. Hershon, the most inexperienced, to Ms. Popino, the most veteran, maintained a cool head and never allowed imagination, the setting or the thrill of the moment to affect his or her sense of reason. Each noise, flash of light or feeling was quickly explained away as the group toured the cemetery, eventually moving toward the oldest section, where the first graves behind the Methodist Church were dug in 1882.

Bodies are still interred at Good Ground, and toward the rear of the cemetery one grave was freshly dug, a gaping hole with boards placed across it for safety.

Before heading home, Ms. Popino and her friends gathered for group photos and chatted enthusiastically about their evening. “I just want to have fun and make friends,” Ms. Popino said, noting that there is a growing number of ghost hunting groups on Long Island and they are often in competition with each other.

PAST is her attempt at unifying the community and putting an end to infighting among people seeking the same thing—answers about the afterlife. Ms. Popino pointed out that Ms. Vetrano, for example, should be able to find a serious group to join through the network of people in PAST.

A little more than a week after the Good Ground investigation, Ms. Popino said she had no real evidence of the paranormal in her photographs from that Sunday night. Though some believe graveyards are the last place a ghost would haunt, she maintains that her cemetery investigations have garnered solid results. Through PAST, Ms. Popino is continuing to offer the ghost hunting experience to new people and regulars on a monthly basis.

On Tuesday, Mr. Taylor said he found a potential EVP on his diode recorder. He always remains skeptical, but in this case the audiophile believes he might have the real thing. The six-second sound clip contains what sounds like a muffled voice saying, “At the stones.”

Mr. Taylor questions what else the sound could be, and with no other explanation apparent, he’s leaning toward declaring it legitimately paranormal. “What are they trying to tell us?” he asked, hoping to decipher the message.

When Ms. Popino related her first ghostly experience, she said she never identified the young man standing over her or what he wanted. “I never get answers,” she said, adding, “That’s why I’m doing this.”