I was in elementary school when I was standing in line at Cooke's Food Store with my grandmother. I picked up the Halloween addition of Disney Adventures. The cover was purple and it had a featured article in it about a real ghostbuster. Like most nine-year-olds, I loved Ghostbusters. The thought of that being a real job was amazing. I talked my grandmother into buying the magazine and that’s when it all started.
I spent most of my childhood with my grandmother. She was into the occult, watched Unsolved Mysteries religiously, and always had an open mind and good ghost story. She would tell me about phantom trains, things she saw when she was young, and comforted me when I began having experiences. I’m not psychic. I just grew up in a very active little town where most buildings had a story and everyone talked about the weird stuff that they had seen or heard.
So, seeing that investigating the supernatural was a real thing that grown-ups did was crazy exciting for a kid in 1994. The article was about a ghost hunter named Troy Taylor. I ready about the equipment he used, some things he had seen and that was in I made up my mind to be a ghost hunter.
Fast forward to 2001. I’m a teenager and am just learning how to handle the newfound freedom that comes with driving, the time management that comes with taking rough courses and playing sports… dating. For Christmas, my mom had actually contacted Troy Taylor and gotten me a copy of his book, The Ghost Hunters Guild Book and some equipment, some of which I still used today.
I started checking out local legends with my friends. After a year of “investigating” graveyards and old buildings, people began calling me for help. So, I switched gears and started really investigating. I bought a DVR and a ton of cameras and began running a group we called the Cleveland Occult Research Team.(There’s been a few names changes over the years.) We were basically a bunch of kids that knew enough to be dangerous. But we learned.
After school, I became a private investigator and investigated various types of fraud, missing persons, and theft cases. I did PI work for about 12 years before leaving the field. I kept hunting ghosts and putting my investigative skills to use collecting evidence of hauntings, debunking fakes, and helping people understand that most “hauntings” have a normal natural explanation. I even got to meet Troy in person a few years ago and worked with his group the American Ghost Society for a short time.
Today, I Investigate a few cases a year on my own and lend my experience to other teams that want someone to take a look at evidence and or bounce theories off of.
Everyone’s story is different. A mixture of wanting to understand the experiences I had when I was young, the support of my grandmother, and a random article in a kids magazine lead me to become a ghost hunter. I’d love to hear what sparked your interest in the paranormal. Leave a story in the comments section or contact me if you would like to tell your story on my podcast.
