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Storyteller's Cabin |
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Part Two - Hell Hole |
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Part Three - The Hunt |
(Part One of a Three Part Series)
An Interview with Cheri Mohr Drake of the Georgia Haunt Hunt Team
The Moonlit Road recently spoke with GHHT founder Cheri Mohr Drake about ghost hunting - how it's done, the misperceptions about groups like hers, and how you, too, can spot a ghost:
Q: How did you first become interested in ghost hunting?
A: Well, I've always been interested in ghosts and ghost stories, and when we (got Internet access), which was about four years ago, the first thing I did was look up ghost stories. And when I typed in "ghost stories" (in a search engine), what came up was the Ghost Web (http://www.ghostweb.com). And I started looking at it, and I was, like, what in the world is this? Because there were tons and tons of pictures of blobs - that's what they looked like. And I read (founder of Ghost Web) Dave Oester's theories on what he thought those blobs were and all this, and I wanted to see if I could go do that myself.
So I went to the cemetery just a little past dusk and started snapping a whole roll of pictures, got them back, and sure enough, there were blobs all over them! So I thought, okay, maybe this is just a nighttime phenomenon. I went to my backyard - actually it was my parents' backyard - and took a whole roll of pictures. Nothing. So, that's what really got me interested in ghost hunting. I waited forever for a group to start up in Georgia. All the surrounding states had groups already. I got tired of waiting, so I started my own, and that was in 1997.
GHHT members search for ghosts in an Atlanta restaurant, accompanied by a local TV cameraman.
Q: Tell us your definition of what a ghost is?
A: A ghost is a person who has passed away - they don't have their physical body anymore - and for what could be various reasons, they either choose to stay or they are disoriented, so to speak, and they stay behind because they don't understand that they're without a physical body. And they don't cross over into whatever it is we're supposed to cross over to after death, whereas a spirit, on the other hand, has crossed over, and can come and go as they please.
Like, say your grandmother, and she's crossed over properly and she comes back, and you smell her perfume that she always wore. Spirits, we think, do that. But ghosts are usually not happy beings. They usually are here for reasons that are not happy reasons. We don't think it does you any good to be a ghost. You definitely need to go on in whatever way it comes to you when you die.
Q: So if ghosts do exist, then we really don't know what they're doing here or what they want?
A: Well, sometimes they do seem to let it be known what they want. I'll give you an example. There's a case where a woman was constantly having things thrown out of her desk in her home - her kitchen desk. She was upset about this, and why it was targeting that desk she did not know. And finally we put it together that it was only throwing out bank statements, and what this ghost was upset about was the money that was left behind in the account that no one knew about. This would be the family that lived there before this woman had taken possession of the house - this was a built-in desk.
So this ghost was trying to tell her that she had some existing business, and that's a big reason why people stay behind, apparently - unfinished business. She did contact the family that lived there before her, and they did, indeed, find a bank account that should have gone to them, but nobody knew about. Even though (the ghost) was an elderly lady, she did not tell anybody about it.
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