About South Jersey Paranormal Research

SJPR in the Media - HaddonHerald.com - May 11, 2005

She bears no resemblance to Bill Murray or Dan Akroyd, thank goodness, nor does she look like Rick Moranis or Harold Ramis...another thank goodness.
But she does have one thing in common with the characters all four played in two movies: she's a ghostbuster...a kind of ghostbuster, that is.
She uses no supernatural power nor does she use a gun with an otherworldly ray and she has never been slimed.
Yet as a member of South Jersey Paranormal Research (SJPR) - which meets monthly at the Camden County Library in Blackwood - Sherri Halpin's job is to go into homes and buildings and hotels and to visit cemeteries and dormitories, literally anywhere, to discover whether or not "paranormal" behavior exists.
Now the hauntings the Oaklyn resident and her teammates may encounter are not the things that The Amityville Horror may invoke. No. The paranormal behavior the SJPR invariably encounters is more of the Casper variety.

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When Halpin and her crew come upon something at a location (all investigations are done from 9 p.m.-midnight without lights when most activity occurs), it often manifests itself as an orb, mist, or an apparition, not the Hollywood version of a floating sheet that is covering what appears to a body or a spirit in the shape of a body.
"It is extremely rare to ascertain a human shape," said Halpin, a native of Millville. "What you see are mists or balls of light."
And oddly enough these shapes are almost never visible to the naked eye. She noted that when there is a drop in temperature in a room (a spirit is attempting to grab energy in the area by absorbing heat, Halpin said), she and her team will take various readings and take pictures, both digital and 35 mm cameras.
When the film is developed or the disc is downloaded on a computer, Halpin, 31, said one or two or several milky-colored orbs of various sizes will appear on the pictures, orbs that were never seen by the paranormal team.
She pointed out that the lenses on all the cameras are cleaned prior to their investigations, thus ruling out dust on the lenses.
When pictures are taken in a cemetery, a different type of phenomenon occurs. The investigators whip out their cameras when there is a drop in temperature, and the result is often a misty cloud that may be hanging over tombstones. Again, this cloud is never seen with the naked eye.
"We always go through a check list of items we rule out," Halpin said; "glare, dust on the lens, mirrored surfaces, breath on a cold night. Then, when this is all eliminated, we can theorize what might be on the photo."
She believes in the Sherlock Holmes quote: "...when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth..."
What are these orbs or mists? What do they represent?

"They could be the spirit of dead people or a psychic recording of an event that has happened," Halpin said. "Residential hauntings, for example, are like a VCR tape that just keeps playing. Weather conditions, for example, may trigger the response, and the haunting will occur. But it won't harm you. Most of the time what you experience does not even know you are there, although sometimes, under certain conditions, you can communicate with the spirit."
Halpin has a digital recording that she downloaded on her computer where one of the researchers asked whoever or whatever was in the room they were investigating what its name was. They never heard the name until the recording was played and it came through loud and clear.
Every member of the SJPR is a volunteer and there is no charge for an investigation. The group does charge members dues and it does receive occasional donations, but, other than that, all members pay for everything, including their equipment and the T-shirts they wear.
Halpin's aluminum case that she takes to each location contains plenty of electronic equipment: a 35 mm camera, two cassette recorders, two electro-magnetic field detectors, a digital voice recorder, and two gauss meters that measure the electricity in a general area, among other items. Plus a laptop computer.
Halpin has been a member of the SJPR for nine months but she's been interested in the paranormal since she was a child. She said she really doesn't know what attracted her to the world of spirits.
"I was just interested in ghostly things and spirits," she noted. "About 10 years ago I got a computer and started searching for ghosts. I wanted to see what was out there, what people were seeing, what pictures they were taking. I learned about the SJPR on the Internet. Paranormal research groups are online and SJPR had an application on their site to join. That's how I got started."
What happens when a team finds a haunting in a home?
"If we find something," said Halpin, "99 percent of the time the homeowner thinks it's cool and they like things to stay."
Apparently people are not "afraid" to find spirits lurking in their homes. Halpin said her group is booked up for at least two months with planned visits to homes and buildings.
So if you've been hearing strange sounds in your home, seeing strange images, noticing things out-of-place, give the SJPR a call and let them investigate your house. What have you got to lose? It's not as if you're going to miss the gatekeeper.