Ain't afraid of no ghosts

They may not carry proton packs or have a member named Egon, but the Ghost Trackers of Indiana are truly not afraid of ghosts. In fact, ghosts are more of a hobby than a fear for the founders and members of this organization.\nGhost Trackers started almost four years ago in northwest Indiana when Mike McDowell got a small group together to look into some of Indiana's oldest and scariest myths of the paranormal. From there, people from all over Indiana and Chicago began to express interest in the group. Ghost Trackers is now nine chapters strong with nearly 250 members.\nThis past March, the Ghost Trackers made their way into Bloomington, as a chapter was opened by Trisha Koenig.\n"We started with about 10 to 12 members, and we have grown really slow, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing," Koenig said. "The core of people needed to be trained and given a good base. We can't educate until we know our stuff."\nWith a college that has been around as long as IU, a great deal of folklore and myths build over the years and that is exactly what the trackers look for. Several locations in the Indiana Memorial Union, Read Center and the Latino Cultural Center are just a few of the on-campus locations the Ghost Trackers have looked into.\nThe legends from IU come in bunches for the trackers, ranging in location and type of paranormal activity.\nThe IMU is rumored to be haunted in many places. On the top floor, lights are turned on and off; in the Federal Room, an old woman from a painting has been seen walking around; legend even has it the kitchen staff has been haunted by a little boy. Myths have come from La Casa where a woman has been seen walking around, and people who work there at night have heard their names shouted to them from upstairs.\n"The Bloomington area is so rich with urban legends and folklore that people should be more inquisitive," Koenig said.\nBut the investigating hasn't stopped at city limits. \n"There is a hotel about an hour south of IU where we took some tours," said Steven Kuhn, public relations director for the Bloomington chapter. "We saw shadows moving along the walls, then go into rooms and disappear. We also saw a full apparition of a woman dressed in black walk across the lobby, go into a bathroom then disappear."\nJoining the group is not as simple as just expressing interest in the undead. Potential members have to undergo a series of classes and other training before going out on a ghost hunt.\n"Members have to go through a training seminar where members go through a sort of 'Ghost Hunting 101,'" McDowell said."Then they move on to an advanced session, then they have a psychic protection class and finally they move on to actual field work."\nThe trackers try to catch the ghosts on film and audio tape, Kuhn said. After conducting extensive amounts of research on the myth and its location, the group will utilize several tools for catching the ghosts. Thirty-five millimeter cameras, video cameras and tape recorders all try to pick up spectral evidence that doesn't appear to the naked eye.\n-- Contact staff writer Brian Janosch at bjanosch@indiana.edu.