Reflections of A Ghostwriter/Ghosthunter

It’s never good news when the phone rings at 2 a.m. This call was no exception.
“John! Dude, I don’t believe it!”
The dude—me—didn’t recognize the man’s voice.
“Me and my friend? We’re at this old farmhouse?”
Ah-ha. I could see where this conversation was heading.
“And it’s haunted….”
Bingo.
“And something—oh my God—something or someone’s throwing crap off the roof at us!”
“Do you know what time it is?” I asked.
“Oh, sorry, dude. It’s just so awesome! I found your name and number on the Internet and thought I’d call you. Did I wake you?”
Of course not, I thought. I’m The Ghost Professor. I wait by my phone 24/7 for your call.
“How about you e-mail me tomorrow all about your adventure?” I said.
“That’s cool. I’ll do it. Talk to you soon, dude.”
I’ve gotten used to these kinds of phone calls. And to equally strange e-mails. And photos. And to being haunted by “fans.”

It wasn’t always like this. Up until only a few years ago I had been a writer, quietly doing writerly things in a writerly way, not making much of a fuss, flying below the radar. I can’t say that I spent much time thinking about ghosts. But when an editor buddy asked me to write a series of ghost books, the ectoplasm really hit the fan.

I spent a good chunk of 2003 criss-crossing Ohio researching my first ghost book, Ghosthunting Ohio. In 2004, my travels took me through Illinois for Ghosthunting Illinois. Later, I expanded my activities to include locations all across the country, resulting in Ghosthunters: On the Trail of Mediums, Dowsers, Spirit Seekers and Other Investigators of America’s Paranormal World. In 2011, I revisited my home state of Ohio with Ghosthunting Ohio: On the Road Again.

Over these years I have visited at least 100 haunted locations as I researched my books. I came face to face with many people who had seen ghosts and told me their stories. I was amazed at how open people were to my questions. Perhaps my low-tech journalism, using pen and notebook and occasionally a tape recorder, made them feel less intimidated. Maybe I’m just a friendly guy.

I appreciated all those stories. The people who shared them with me were sincere, convinced in every case that they had had a brush with the paranormal. They came from all walks of life: schoolteachers, policemen, librarians, hotel clerks, waitresses, security guards, judges, retired nuns. Yes, they believed and I believed they believed. How could I doubt the word of a nun? Naturally, some of their stories wound up in my books. But others…

There was the woman who called me from her doublewide along the Ohio River. She told me a phantom train ran through her yard at night; that a baby’s voice cried from the abandoned well; that her son levitated three feet over his bed while fast asleep and that a “tall man with wings and red eyes” visited her daughter. The woman herself had been visited by a spirit that broke into a million pieces when she invoked the name of Jesus. Unfortunately, the pieces reformed as a towering devil screaming profanities at her before disappearing. So, she wanted to know, could I come to her trailer and cleanse it of those ghosts?

No.

I did feel badly for her, though, as she was extremely depressed by the awful events unfolding in her trailer and that was why she took anti-depressant medication. And tranquilizers. And smoked dope. Daily. I began to understand why she was seeing ghosts.

But until I started writing about them I never truly comprehended just how popular ghosts were in our culture. Nor did I expect to be sought out by people looking for advice or just wanting to share their stories.
I’m always surprised when as many as fifty people will crowd into a little room in some small-town library to hear The Ghost Professor talk about ghosts—although they also come to hear each other’s stories. I have yet to give a talk in which people in the audience didn’t come with personal ghost stories, often documented with well-worn photos.

After a talk at the public library in Nelsonville, Ohio, several people broke out photos they had taken of ghosts in their homes. They asked me to look at them and then passed them around to each other. For some reason, most of the photos of unexplainable mists and blurs were taken in their kitchens, which made me wonder about two things; did ghosts need to eat? And why did so many people still have avocado-colored appliances?

I don’t fully understand this fascination with ghosts, but I welcome it. All these stories and my own paranormal experiences are grist for my writer’s mill. In fact, they have motivated me to venture into paranormal fiction with my novel Dark Entry and quartet of Ghost Stories. All my years of research are what informs these works, giving them the appearance of reality.

This gig continues to be a mind-expanding experience for me. I have learned that there are some crazies out there in the ghost world, but no more than there are bare-chested Cincinnati Bengals fans, or Rocky Horror Picture Show wannabes, or even NASCAR lovers. But there are also many more serious-minded, rational people who have been convinced by their own encounters that ghosts walk among us.