A haunting and a pizza

Hype of paranormal activity may dominate during Halloween, but for the Hoosier Paranormal Researchers, the unknown never rests.

The eight researchers that make up the investigating team have been going to presumably haunted locations in Indiana with digital audio recorders, infrared and night vision cameras and K2 frequency meters. The group hardly claim actual merit in their findings, and instead investigates for their own benefit and understanding.

“We knew going into this that any evidence that we captured or presented, there will be skeptics,” said HPR founder Greg Wilson. “We understand and appreciate skepticism because we are skeptics ourselves.”

That being said, group members Ricky Stevens, Shanon Ping and brothers Robert, Greg and Kenny Wilson have all experienced paranormal events. Most recently at the old Pixy Theatre in Edinburgh, Ind., the investigators shot night vision footage of Robert Wilson’s glasses mysteriously flying out of his hand six feet across the room they were standing in.

More footage of various paranormal experiences can be found on their Web site at www.hoosierparanormal.com, which also features recorded Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVPs).

The team tries to keep things as scientific as possible by establishing controls such as room temperature and frequency readings early in the investigation and then pairing the different findings against each other.

Their most recent investigation took place Saturday in Columbus, Ind., at a Noble Roman’s pizza restaurant. Investigators were at the scene until 3 a.m., using their tools in hopes of proving customer complaints of a reported “shadow person.”

While closing, Noble Roman’s store manager Ashley Duncan said the night was different than others, largely because of the presence of HPR.

“I just hope they find something,” she said. “There have been some weird things happening around here for a while now.”

Duncan went on to cite examples of previous encounters.

One report involved customers who were eating at a booth across the room from the main counter.

“There was a tile that seemed like it came out of the ceiling from a vent above their booth,” Duncan said, providing an eyewitness account. “It just shattered to the floor.”

The tile, which was broken in three pieces, was a brown, ceramic 2-by-2 square, that, interestingly enough, matches no other tile patterns in the building.

Duncan said she had been working at Noble Roman’s for nearly four years and added that she is not the only one who has witnessed strange happenings.
She said she has seen a half-torso apparition looming in the restaurant’s main hallway near the restrooms, as well as a taller pitch-black shadow figure of a man entering the kitchen area.

“The ghosts are friendly, but you still have the feeling of being rushed,” Duncan explained.

While Duncan’s shift was ending, HPR’s shift was just beginning. The men circled the restaurant with their tools, clad in casual wear and goatees. Some were sipping Diet Cokes and others were leafing through menus.

But all of them, even in all their experience, were focused on the task at hand while keeping in the mind the skeptical opinions of others – and themselves.
“You always have those butterflies in your stomach,” Ping said.