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| Despite ‘Ghostbusters’-like pursuit, group takes the paranormal seriously |
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Posted: Tuesday, July 31, 2012 10:00 pm
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By KEVIN BOWDEN
Staff Reporter
If you’re having trouble with ghosts, apparitions or unexplainable phenomena, there is a team of paranormal investigators ready to help.
Many area residents experiencing paranormal events are turning to Ken-Tenn Paranormal.
Matt Gardner and Chris Henderson are the co-founders and lead investigators of Ken-Tenn Paranormal.
The Cayce, Ky., residents lead a team of investigators who volunteer their time to check out claims of paranormal activity. The team does not charge for its investigations, despite investing a considerable amout of time and money in their work.
Ken-Tenn Paranormal was actually formed in 2009, but several of those at KTP have up to 20 years of experience investigating the paranormal.
Think Ghostbusters (that 1984 comedy featuring Dan Aykroyd, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis), except take away the comedy and replace it with a very professional approach used by the KTP team.
These paranormal investigators take their work very seriously and have invested in some high-tech electronic equipment.
Gardner and Henderson have digital voice recorders, night vision cameras, electromagnetic field meters and handheld digital cameras. What they don’t use are Ouija™ boards, seances, dowsing rods or any other unscientific methods in their work.
“KTP always seeks to debunk or find everyday explanations for our clients’ experiences,” the KTP website states. “Ken-Tenn Paranormal is a team of serious investigators who are interested in all things paranormal. We at KTP have a desire to help anyone who feels they are experiencing a haunting or paranormal activity.”
The paranormal investigators have conducted about 40 investigations over the past three years.
Gardner is quick to point out that 90 percent of those cases are not hauntings. It is that remaining 10 percent that the investigators are interested in documenting.
Members of the KTP team are all volunteers and come from the Cayce area, as well as South Fulton, Union City and Clinton, Ky.
“I have always known there is a spiritual side to this life but took an interest to paranormal study after the house we recently purchased had a lot of unexplained happenings. I look forward to learning more about the ‘unexplained’,” KTP tech manager Doug Dalton of Union City states on the KTP website.
The group’s website features a brief biography of each of the team members as well as a list of investigations, a glossary of paranormal terms, a guestbook and photos from their investigations.
For the uninformed, there is a difference between paranormal and supernatural. Paranormal refers to something beyond the range of normal human experience or scientific explanation, while supernatural relates to existence outside the natural world and often involves divine or demonic intervention, according to the KTP website.
It is that scientific explanation for suspected paranormal events that is the goal of KTP. However, the list of investigations on the KTP website reveals they have identified haunted homes and buildings in Obion County as well as across southwest Kentucky.
The team has investigated a public cemetery in Fulton County, Ky., as well as the Fulton Public Library, a barn in Obion County and Octagon Hall in Franklin, Ky.
Due to the nature of their work, KTP does not identify its clients on the website, but does provide details of their investigations. The team takes a very professional approach to its work and even does research on sites under investigation.
KTP on the scene
It’s a muggy Saturday evening at a residence in Union City’s Pleasant Valley subdivision. The homeowner and her oldest of two daughters have been experiencing paranormal activity since they moved into the house about a year ago.
“I think his name is Paris Bell Montgomery ... but I’m not sure,” she told The Messenger.
He was a World War II Army veteran and a member of First Baptist Church in Union City. Montgomery was born April 5, 1909, in Gibson County, and he died Oct. 1, 1998.
“We found his grave and we have pictures of his grave,” the homeowner said as she shared a copy of Montgomery’s obituary notice from White-Ranson Funeral Home.
When asked when she first began experiencing paranormal occurrences in her home, she didn’t hesitate.
“The first night. Right away. I knew right away. I knew there was a disturbance in the house,” she said.
Her oldest daughter, who is 15, said she has felt a presence in the house as well. She said she senses being watched when she is in the kitchen, the laundry room, the bathroom and her bedroom.
“He goes everywhere,” she said. “I’ve never actually seen him, it’s more like a presence. It’s pretty freaky.
“It feels like every single house we’ve lived in has been haunted.”
The client opened a kitchen cabinet and revealed some sage, which she said she has used to try get rid of her ghost.
The homeowner says she isn’t afraid of the ghost, but would like to get rid of it.
Enter the team from Ken-Tenn Paranormal.
It’s 7:45 p.m. Saturday and four members of Ken-Tenn Paranormal make their way into the house. The kitchen becomes a makeshift interview area and the team is given a complete tour of the house.
The questions come quickly from Gardner and his team.
The homeowner is asked about unusual smells in her house, sounds, footsteps, bangs, knocks, levitations, hot or cold spots and any other unexplainable events.
“I just wake up in the night and feel like something’s there,” she tells Gardner.
“It seems like he likes the hours from 2 to 4 a.m.,” she said.
Once the interview and tour are completed, the team methodically sets up its equipment — audio and visual monitors throughout the house. A patio table outside the kitchen is used as a base and all the cables are fed into a laptop computer there.
A houseful of guests — adults and teenagers intrigued by the paranormal investigation — eventually clear out and Gardner and his team go to work.
They spent five hours (until about 2:30 a.m. Sunday) monitoring the house for any evidence of paranormal activity and will spend this week analyzing their audio and video footage. Once they’ve completed their review, the investigators will report back to the homeowner.
The team has about 25 hours’ worth of audio and video recordings from four cameras to review.
“I can’t wait to hear back from them, to see if they found anything,” the home-owner said.
Published in The Messenger 7.31.12 |
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