SOUTHINGTON - As Ann Bernard walked through the basement of the Grange Hall just after 10 p.m. Saturday, one of the dowsing rods in her hand began to spin.

Other members of her team rushed over to take readings on meters. While the New England Ghost Hunter's Guild had plenty of activity, it stopped short of declaring the building haunted until members could go over all their recordings.

"When I walk over here I get a really bad vibe, like we shouldn't be here," member Jon Annear said while walking through the kitchen in the basement. "You have to be careful what you look for."

"Every investigation is different. We came here tonight not expecting to do too much, but we did have some things happen," investigator Jay Pallazzo said. "We don't call a place haunted until we go through everything, and even then, it may take us coming back one or two more times to decide if there was really something here or not."

The guild members began setting up for the evening around 7 p.m. by getting out over $3,000 of investigative gadgetry. They have video cameras with infrared emitters on them so they can record what is happening in a room when it is in complete darkness, several electromagnetic field, or EMF, detectors that also read temperature, infrared motion detectors and a remote thermometer for checking temperatures at a distance.

"All our instruments deal with energy in some way," Annear said. "When people die, you can't destroy energy. Their energy could still be around in some way."

When ghosts try to make contact or communicate, they can draw energy from somewhere in the room, causing a drop in temperature or creating an EMF, Annear said.

The first electronic voice phenomena session evening began shortly before 8 p.m. in the main floor's meeting area of the building. With video and audio recorders rolling, the group began to ask questions. Palazzo said sometimes an electronic device can pick up sounds the human ear cannot.

He sat listening to the recordings through headphones as guild members asked "Is there anybody who is with us tonight? Are you alone or are others with you? Could you say your name? What is the date?"

"We rely only on class A or B EVP," Palazzo said. "That is when you get a clear intelligent response."

As the group was asking questions, Cassy Pabst and Amanda Legg got out more traditional methods of communicating with spirits, crystal pendulums. As they ask questions, the pendulum may swing back and forth for yes or side to side for no. The two got a few responses, especially when asked if the spirit was that of former Grange member Joseph Bell.

Though there were slight responses to some of the questions, the group was sweating and needed to take a break. After the break, the group decided to try another session in the basement, this time with Bernard using the dowsing rods to communicate.

She holds a rod in each hand while hold her arms steady. As the group asks questions, the rods move. If the rods cross, that is a yes response to the questions. When asked if Bell loved his wife and wanted to let her know he was OK, the rod started spinning in circles.

"That means there was really high energy in the room," Bernard said of the rods spinning.

When one of the devices goes off, group members perform an exhaustive search to find possible causes. For instance, when an EMF detector went off, it was determined to be cause by a nearby electrical conduit.

After the sessions were concluded by 2 a.m., the member starting packing up their gear to head home. Palazzo said will take at least a week to go through all the video, audio and still photographs to see if the group was able to capture any evidence.

"Every investigation is different. We came here tonight not expecting to do too much, but we did have some things happen," Pallazzo said. "We don't call a place haunted until we go through everything, and even then, it may take us coming back one or two more times to decide if there was really something here or not."

When the group members have gone through all the material, they will post the findings on their Web site, www.ghosthuntersguild.com. The site also has contact information.

"Where else can you get this kind of entertainment for free?" Pallazzo said of the group, its sense of humor and its work.

rrathsack@record-journal.com

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