Paranormal activity
Published 10:45 pm Saturday, April 24, 2010
Have you ever heard weird noises in your house when you were there alone?
Did you ever see someone standing in your room one minute and the next they were gone, but you swore it was a ghost?
Well, now you have someone to call.
V.A.P.I.R. Paranormal is the latest paranormal investigation organization to hit South Georgia.
The nonprofit group began when several of its members expressed an interest in learning more about paranormal activity. They had either seen it with their own eyes or believed in it.
“We had a rough beginning because we started off with no equipment,” leader Claudia Cirey said. “We had a lot of young people in the group and they basically didn’t show up a lot. If you want to do this on an everyday basis, you’ve got to have a team that is actually dedicated and (can) put some work in it.”
The group remodeled itself just before Christmas and now has several older members who are devoted to the investigations.
“We have great equipment now,” Cirey said. “We have live cameras now if we have power available.”
Investigating in South Georgia
V.A.P.I.R. Paranormal has investigated several areas in Lowndes County, including Vito’s and the old site of the town of Troupville.
They don’t intend to stop there. However, the group has had bad luck trying to get the people of Valdosta to open up to the idea of paranormal activity.
“It seems like Valdosta has its own mind about paranormal activity,” Cirey said. “Because we’re local, when you call people, especially historical places, you would think they would say, OK. We don’t want to make them believe in it. They just have to be open to (the idea). It just seems like we run into closed doors in this town. I wrote so many historical places here in town, but I never get any answers back.”
Several of the places the group has investigated are in North Florida.
According to Cirey, the people in Florida have been very open to the idea of the organization investigating paranormal activity.
“We went recently to a bed and breakfast in Monticello,” Cirey said. “We booked the whole place. They had some claims (of ghost) in there, and we picked audio up really good. The lady said that they have another bed and breakfast if we wanted to do that one.
“Wherever we go in Florida, they welcome us. It’s just here in town (where) everybody seems to think we’re doing something evil or (with) witchcraft.”
Witchcraft is not a part of V.A.P.I.R. Paranormal’s mission.
The group’s mission is to find scientific proof of paranormal activity by dealing with residual hauntings, spirits, interactive spirits, non-human spirits, poltergeist, shadow ghosts, orbs, ectoplasm and vortexes.
According to Cirey, the group does not vandalize any property that they go on.
“Everywhere we go, we try to get written permission,” Cirey said. “I want permission forms signed. Usually, when we go at night, when it’s dark and people see us with flashlights … they call the police.”
Paranormal experiences
Cirey first began researching paranormal activity after moving from Germany to Valdosta with her husband. She began studying paranormal activity after moving into a new house and noticing weird things happening and weird things in her photos.
“I mailed one picture off to some group in Florida and they told me basically it looked like an apparition in the house,” Cirey said. “Back then, I watched all the shows. I thought, I wonder if I did that with a basic digital camera and recorder.”
After that experience, Cirey and her daughter went to a nearby graveyard. They walked around and no one else was there. They asked questions randomly to the silent air, but when they got back home to listen to the audio they recorded, someone was talking to them on there.
In the Valdosta area, the group has researched Vito’s downtown.
“I cannot say we got a lot at Vito’s,” Cirey said. “Picture wise, we got one thing upstairs. We had two video cameras set up and they both shut off twice. Downstairs we got quite a few EVPs, (but) not really any pictures. It’s hard to get EVPs there because of the traffic outside.”
An EVP is an electronic voice phenomena, which is a capture of spirit voices as audio recordings.
V.A.P.I.R. uses EVPs as an important part of their research. They use digital voice recorders to record their surroundings while in a place they are studying.
On a recent trip to an old cabin in North Florida, the V.A.P.I.R. Paranormal group found some very interesting EVPs.
“We went to a cabin,” Cirey said. “There was no power in the cabin or anything around. It was just a wooden, old cabin. We took some pictures and audio in there and didn’t hear anything. So, we walk out the door like 30 minutes later and one of the girls was listening to the recorder on the way out.
“You could hear a woman telling us to get out, really clear and loud on the voice recorder. We all went back in and started all over again. The EMF (electronic magnetic field) reading went off the hook in there.”
According to Cirey, the group usually gets high EMF readings when there are items such as cell phones, televisions or computers, but there was no power at all in the cabin they were in. They also do not carry cell phones with them while they are researching.
Believers
Most of the members of V.A.P.I.R. are females, but there are a few male members. They would like to have more males for security purposes while out researching at night.
“We exist (and) they don’t have to be afraid to contact us,” she said. “It’s confidential. We don’t use any names if they don’t want us to. … (We basically want) people to know we’re here. We don’t do any witchcraft. We don’t drink when we go out or vandalize. We respect someone when (they) say, Don’t go there. We don’t go there.”
V.A.P.I.R.’s services are confidential, free of charge and do not use any mediums, Ouija boards or seances.
The members also don’t care if people call them ghostbusters or any other name.
“They can call us whatever they want to, as long as they call us,” Cirey said.
On the Web
www.vapirparanormal.com