Getting paranormal at Caribou Coffee

I just noticed a sign on the door behind my perch at a picnic table outside the Caribou Coffee on East Blvd. "Tonight outside at 7pm :)" reads the hand-written note on a piece of paper taped to the glass. The letterhead: the Charlotte Paranormal Meetup Group (a combination of believers and investigators).

Sure enough, just in front of me, about 15 people are finishing up what must have been an incredibly long gathering for what seems like such an off-the-wall topic. They all look normal enough, at least for the Caribou Coffee crowd. Surprisingly, though, they're almost all middle aged. I don't know what I was expecting, but regular potential moms and dads it was not.

I'm going to have to check this out. A woman just stood up to announce the end of the meeting. She must be the leader. Take me to your leader...

The leader: Ambur Rose. Ambur is a clairvoyant. Does that mean she talks to ghosts?

Well, first of all, we shouldn't get too caught up in how the media defines ghosts. Ghost means different things to different people. Someone who was raised Catholic might think possession and exorcism. A pagan or Wicca, on the other hand, might think entity to communicate with.

On top of that, we all have the intuition to know when someone's about to knock on the door, or get a chill up our spines when we just know something is wrong. It's just a matter of honing those skills, and looking into the feelings and what's causing them.

So Ambur has honed it. She's trained in psychometry. You know that sensation you get when you pick up an old memento--teddy bear, picture, postcard? The memories that wash over and seem to transport you to another time and place? Ambur might get it from walking through a (haunted) house. She could be feeling the wall and get suddenly struck by a feeling, sound, or image.

In other words, a family who thinks their house is haunted will give her a call and ask her to tell them what's been happening and why.

"Once they see a scary movie or two, they think they're going to wind up with Carrie in their house, or being thrown across the room," Ambur tells me. "What the media shows you is far, far different from what really happens in this world. They need assurance that something like that is not going to happen."

But on a full-scale investigation, Ambur is only one part of the team. There are also lots of people with gadgets. To explain that side of things, Ambur walks back into the crowd and brings me Tina McSwain, the founder and president of the Charlotte Area Paranormal Society (CAPS).

Homes and businesses can be haunted, especially if there was once a death on the premises (battlefields are almost always haunted). If a client thinks his home or business (or battlefield) is haunted, he'll make the call.

Maybe he's hearing strange noises: bumps, knocks, voices. He could feel unusual hot or cold spots, or see something that he just can't explain, like a mist cloud or flickering ball of light. Sometimes, things in the house even move on their own--dishes or cookie jars slide across the counter and smash onto the floor.

First a few members of the team conduct an interview with the potential client in person, usually after work (all ghost hunters have day jobs; investigations are free of charge). They get a feel for his character. Is he trying to pull a fast one? Does he have an overactive imagination? Is there a pattern to what he's been experiencing? Did someone die in his house recently?

If they think it's legit, the full team will head over on a Friday or Saturday night, say around 8 (they might stay until 4 or 5 am). Instruments include, but are not limited to, Electromagnetic Field Detectors, night vision goggles, thermal imaging cameras, digital voice recorders, digital cameras, a compass.

The first order of business, according to Jason Porter, a member of the Atlantic Paranormal Society (the group that's featured on the TV show "Ghost Hunters") who's moving to Charlotte and considering starting his own team here, is proving that there aren't any ghosts.

"The term we use is debunk," he says. "And we try to debunk all the claims first. Like if a door is opening by itself, we check to see if it's level."

Faulty electrical wiring could cause lights to flicker. Iron deposits under a house might cause weird magnetic spots. Short circuits can make people feel like they're being watched.

But lots of places also have ghosts hanging around.

Unexplained hot and cold spots in a room might give one away.

"One theory is that when a spirit is around it needs energy to manifest or move things," McSwain says. "They'll take energy out of the air, thereby creating a cold spot. I mean, it's a theory, you know?"

The best results often come with a digital voice recorder, which can pick up otherwise undetectable voices. McSwain usually asks if there's a ghost in the room with something to say. Or the ghost might just speak up on its own.

McSwain remembers an investigation during which the clairvoyant asked her to come into a room, because she felt the presence of a little girl. McSwain said she would, but worried out loud that she'd scare the little girl away. Hours later, upon reviewing the tape, a little girl's voice could be heard: "You didn't scare me."

Once the client found out it was just a child-ghost, she was no longer afraid.

This would never happen at Starbucks.

The meetup group meets at 7 pm on the last Friday of every month. You can follow CAPS exploits at Ghost GRRLS.

**a few mistakes in the original post have been corrected