Hunting ghosts: A hit-and-miss adventure

Although I believe myself to be a generally optimistic, glass-is-half-full type of person, I’m also an admitted skeptic. Of a lot of things. I don’t believe Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. I rarely believe anything that comes out of a politician’s mouth.

Two things I am not skeptical about, however, are UFOs and ghosts. I’m usually adamant in defending their existence, on one level or another. I just think we’d be naive to suggest we don’t share our living space with other beings. For all the science we have, there are just too many unknowns to completely dismiss their presence.

I thought I knew a fair amount, being as difficult as it is for me to pass by any ghost-related show on the Discovery or History Channels. And even if I didn’t, I knew I was fascinated by it.

That’s why, when an e-mail about a new company called Chicago Ghost Investigations arrived in my inbox, I figured I would have to check it out.

Next thing you know, I’m being picked up in a big yellow van by Michaelynn, the wife of a Chicago cop who started the business. Three college-age people, two from UIC, are already on board for the excursion, and we meet up with another couple upon arriving at our destination — an old, abandoned apartment that is being rehabbed near Taylor and Ogden on Chicago’s west side. Destinations for the investigation tours rotate between several locations, I’m told.

Michaelynn describes the area as “original Chicago,” because the Chicago Fire started down the street and blew east, protecting most of the nondescript neighborhood that stands before us. It is the perfect place to come in contact with ghosts, or entities, as she calls them, because there used to be a morgue holding center across the street, and we’re within shouting distance of several hospitals. Rumor is that people sometimes die at hospitals.

Once in the apartment, Michaelynn gives us a breakdown of various “ghost hunting” instruments that register such things as electromagnetic fields and temperature changes, and she teaches us how to use them, all the while explaining in detail just what entities are and why they’re all around us.

Then she breaks out several pairs of copper L-shaped dowsing rods, which apparently date back to ancient Roman times and are used often by psychics (Michaelynn will later tell me she is from a family full psychics). By concentrating and asking yes-or-no type questions, you are supposed to be able to have spirits answer by moving the rods (crossing them for yes, separating them for no, etc.). It reminds me, in a sense, of a Quija board.

Michaelynn is the first to attempt to speak to someone who, well, wasn’t in the van with us on the way here. She seems to succeed for a bit, as the wires move slowly, and she’s sure she is in touch with one of her regulars, a ghost named Frank, who is said to have quite the personality. The other members of the tour begin exploring the rest of the apartment with copper rods and all sorts of equipment. “What’s behind these doors?” a girls asks.

“Frank,” I answer, which gets a few laughs.

I ask Michaelynn if she’s taken these dowsing rods elsewhere, perhaps places famous for being haunted. She claims to have spoken to the ghost of famed bank robber John Dillinger in the alley next to the Biograph Theatre, where he was gunned down by lawmen in 1934. “But he’s a jerk,” she says.

Nothing much is happening when I try the dowsing rods, which, by the way, move pretty easily, maybe too easily. Patience is stressed, so I decide to move into another room, where a woman from our group is asking relatively specific questions to an entity nearby. She is sure she’s in contact with her grandmother, and the rods are spinning in dramatic fashion. Everyone stops to watch. She asks questions aloud, that only her grandmother would know, like names of children, age when she died and so forth, and each time, the rods move accordingly. “I know it’s her,” she says. “I just know it is. I’ve always been able to get Quija boards to work, had light bulbs break and stuff like that.”

The look in her eye as the rods swing like wind chimes in a tornado was evidence enough for me that something may be at work here.

Later, Michaelynn is describing the background of some of the spirits that hang out in or around the apartment. She mentions a young woman who died during child birth who speaks to her frequently. “Oh my god, I was talking to a ghost earlier that wouldn’t answer when I asked if she died while giving birth,” says one of the girls from UIC. “And then I felt this weird pressure on my stomach.”

She shivers, acknowledging a cold chill. Michaelynn explains this is more common than we might think. Other tour guests have experienced coughing spells when speaking with an entity who perished from tuberculosis, or numbness on the left side of their body when conversing with a stroke victim.

At this point my nose began itching, but I didn’t feel like bringing that up to the group.

I engage Michaelynn in a conversation about her beliefs in the after-life. She describes the likelihood of spirit guides and guardian angels assigned to each of us, reincarnation and the task of paying off karmic debts.

She believes she has experienced several former lives. She often dreams of Israel, though she has never been, and can cook Middle Eastern food without ever having opened a cookbook. She has had a natural inclination to the Spanish language despite never studying it. She and the girl who believes she was in contact with her grandmother proceed to share stories about being attacked by a ghost, to where they felt like someone was sitting on their chest, holding their eyes shut and breathing in their ear. They practically finish each other’s sentences. Weird.

All in all, my night with Chicago Ghost Investigations was an interesting experience. If you’re looking for a walking tour of the city’s most haunted locales or to be scared out of your wits this month, you know, in the spirit of things, this doesn’t exactly qualify. But if you’re interested in hearing an expert’s views on the after-life and those who reside there, as well as using some gadgets that may just indicate the presence of a ghost or two in your vicinity, then this should be right up your alley.

On the walk back to the van, we all share a few ghostly stories, a couple of which seem to get under the skin of one of the young college girls. She was going to sit in the backseat of the van but didn’t want to do so by herself. Not after having her stomach pressed by ... by something.

For more information, log on to www.ghostsofchicago.com or call (773) 935-6332.

Trent Modglin
Publisher
The Real Chicago
Trent@TheRealChicago.org

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