By JESSICA KERMAN

jessica.kerman@heraldbulletin.com

Dawn Taylor has always been interested in paranormal activity. Cheryl Stewart talks to spirits. David Blose was a skeptic who was just curious.

These are just three of the 15 people in Ghost Central and Legend Hunters, a Madison County-based ghost-tracking group.

“We’re the main group of several others,” Taylor, president of the group, said.

Ten years ago, Taylor and some others started investigating stories of hauntings in Madison County. After a few years, though, the group became tired of the same sites and started adventuring outside the county.

“Each county has a group,” Taylor explained. “We started barking up in other territories.”

Eventually, Ghost Central started incorporating other groups. Now, the organization has 43 groups in more than 25 states. However, Ghost Central and Legend Hunters is the umbrella investigation team, Taylor said. Each of the other groups has a slightly different name, but Ghost Central is always in front, she said.

According to a recent poll from The Associated Press and Ipsos, 34 percent of people say they believe in ghosts. The poll on ghosts and superstition was done between Oct. 16 and 18. More than 1,000 adults nationwide were surveyed via telephone for the poll, which had an error margin of plus or minus 3.1 percent.

Every Saturday, the group piles into a van and visits a site to investigate. Most of the time, before group members go to a site, they spend hours doing research about the area.

As most ghost groups do, Ghost Central uses several equipment items to record its findings, and some of the time, it finds nothing, Blose said.

“I’ve actually had to go back the next day to see what could be in the pictures,” Taylor said. “Orbs can be dust; they can be almost anything. We try to explain everything.”

Orbs are the most common figures groups claim to be spirits. The circles that appear in pictures can be explained by reflections, dust and other interference to a camera. However, Taylor said, sometimes the circles cannot be explained.

The group members also analyze pictures for shapes in mist or black figures. A lot of the time, they see the grim reaper with his sickle as a shape in the mist.

The group has identified about 190 sites in Madison County including the opera house in Elwood and Hays Cemetery outside of Pendleton that have paranormal activity.

However, the most activity they’ve seen comes from Brown County.

“I don’t think there’s any rhyme or reason,” Blose said. “I think it’s something that likes to make itself known. Every time you go back, you have a different experience.”

In Indiana, ghost hunters are asked to get a specialized license for the trade.

“It’s so police departments can identify real ghost hunters,” Taylor said.

Ghost Central and Legend Hunters has had little trouble with police, and most of the time, police help the group find new places to explore, Taylor said.

While the group spends most of its time investigating possible paranormal activity, the mission is to make people more aware of a spirit world.

“I think our biggest thing is we just want people to know that there is something out there,” Taylor said. “You do have the skeptics. We want people to know that (spirits) are out there.”

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A hunt for haunting gypsies

By JESSICA KERMAN

Saturday, I joined Ghost Central and Legend Hunters on one of its hunts. We went to a few cemeteries in Butler, which is just north of Fort Wayne.

The first cemetery was chosen because of the ghost story that accompanied it. According to legend, gypsies lived in the woods near the graveyard, and farmers in the area did not like the gypsies. After a gypsy supposedly raped a farmer’s daughter, the farmers killed the gypsies. For 10 years after that, the farmers were all found dead, killed by an ax, mysteriously in the woods. Now, no one will go into the woods for fear of being killed by the haunting gypsies.

We went into the woods. As we searched the area, Stewart talked to a spirit that was buried in the cemetery. We found mounds in what seemed to be a drained pond, but later attributed them to the local quarry, which was within sight.

Members of the group took pictures and found orbs and mists in the cemetery, but I’m still not sure those were caused by spirits. The experience was very entertaining and I’m still interested in joining the group on other hunts just to see what might turn up.

I was a skeptic when we left, and I’m still a skeptic now. However, the people of Ghost Central and Legend Hunters are dedicated to something they believe in, and I respect them for that.





Want more information?

To contact Ghost Central and Legend Hunters, e-mail Dawn Taylor at GCLegendHunter@aol.com.







About the Series -- Getting Goosebumps

• Saturday: Everything but haunted houses

• Saturday: A-maized

• Today: A Ghostly Hobby

• Tuesday: Haunting Hays Cemetery

• Wednesday: A Monstrous Collection