Monday, June 25, 2012

Tooele Ghost Hunters at the Library

On Saturday, June 16, our library hosted a presentation by some local ghost hunters, "Untitled Paranormal Investigators" or UPI. This group consists of a couple of young folks and an older fellow who go around Utah (and maybe other areas?) and do free paranormal investigations. They are a non-profit organization and they don't charge anyone for their services, which seems to lend some integrity and validity to their work. They are all very passionate about what they do, and their excitement is contagious.

Derek VonHatten and Kristina Niles came out to present to us, bringing a couple of cases of their equipment and a pair of DVDs- one with evidence they have collected and one promoting preservation of historic places, particularly the Mercur Cemetery in Tooele County, Utah. The DVDs were okay, the EPVs and video were fine, but my critical side can't help but comment that they need some professional digital video assistance. I would bet there must be a film student out there who wouldn't mind volunteering to help them improve their documentation and narration. The transitions were choppy and often after a few clips, I had forgotten where they said they were-- it would have been nice to have a subtle visual tag naming the location of the shot. It was fine, though, and tolerable for what it was.

Both Derek and Kristina seem like very nice people, respectful, professional and they treat the subject matter with dignity.

Everyone in our crowded audience appeared both entertained and interested-- it was a great presentation-- humor dropped in among the more serious topics, they didn't try to address religion or the WHY of this stuff, just showing you what they have. Derek says he's the skeptic, in that he's less malleable to the spirit world (my words) and doesn't have the connection the older dude does-- hasn't ever felt anything touch his arm or any such activity, which was interesting.

So the question might be whether any of their evidence was truly scary? Somewhat. The whispered EVPs are what frighten me. Some of the others were hard to hear or see, and as such, not particularly scary, but it was definitely interesting.

Their video blurb about the restoration they have done and continue to do at Mercur Cemetary was good, it's a worthy cause, though their reasoning is different than mine. It sounded as if they do it almost exclusively for future paranormal investigators (well, that's what they said- I imagine there's more to it than just that) and I would encourage preservation primarily based on the historical, educational and genealogical value. :)

I missed the presentation segment about the equipment-- most of it. It was probably interesting. I did see them demonstrate a green multi-point laser thingy that was pretty cool.

Unfortunately, Derek and Kristina didn't get to tell us their favorite investigation stories-- we kind of ran over with the first Q & A segment, but I would have liked to hear that. They promised to come back in the fall- probably October, and do a second presentation, so we will look forward to that!

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