Page 33 - 200908 - The 'X' Chronicles Newspaper - August 2009

33 Paranormal News 33 Paranormal News Supernaturally and the realm of the supernatural. In his earlier Authentic ghost hunting involves time and Supernaturally Southern: Kentucky years he considered himself a non-believer in patience, cold objectivity and scientific Southern: Kentucky the supernatural. As the years passed, Keith exactitude. According to Keith, “Only one out Ghost Hunter Calls became acquainted with the science of ghost of one hundred cases will actually be real Ghost Hunter Calls oral hunting of traditions through haunts.” the Lakewood Home storytelling and eventually, its popularization Most alleged haunts end up being Lakewood Home through mass media. projections or imaginations of the self When asked what pivotal event captured proclaimed victim, no more than symptoms of by Dan Slife his interest in the supernatural Keith provided a their own psychosomatic condition powered by by Dan Slife The Lakewood Observer The Lakewood Observer personal anecdote. “I was pretty much imagination. Oftentimes the shadows causing traumatized by my grandmother when I was a spine tingling terror are nothing more than the In the tradition of American ghost kid with horror movies. It started with [Stephen dancing of reflected head lamps, the demented hunting an apparent tie exists between the civil King’s] “It,” she told me it was [about] Bozo the sounds of voices merely machines or appliances war and the nation’s most notorious hauntings. clown to get me to watch it and after that, as I in need of a tune-up. It is the job of the ghost Southern places and southern-born writers seem grew older… I started getting into more horror hunter to disprove, to identify all mundane to dominate the scene. Adam Keith comes from movies,” said Keith with a sarcastic smile. He causes, to separate the psyche of the victim this rich history with his birthplace, Louisville, enjoyed receiving his grandmother’s trickery as from the natural and supernatural histories and Kentucky situated squarely within its much as she enjoyed delivering it. Over time realities of the place. geographic and cultural boundaries. A hobby this fascination with the supernatural through The research begins with an interview ghost hunter himself, Keith moved to mass media would mature into a passion for of the witness followed by an historical audit Lakewood late last year, doing his part to build ghost hunting that, as you will see, engendered wherein the earliest records of the location are the pantheon of unique, venerable personalities communal relationships and technical know- unearthed. Keith looks for documentation of that give the 'Wood' its distinctive character. how. deaths, burial grounds, or tragedies. After Keith’s initiation into lived supernatural preliminary investigations, the site is fitted with experience took place several years after the EMP (electro-magnetic pulse), video and voice passing of his grandfather. Returning home recorders. Because in most cases spooks are from the late shift during his early twenties he active at night, the equipment is set to record for noticed light in his basement. Peering down the an entire evening. Reviewing this data is stairwell he saw his grandfather, rocking in his painstaking. For the dedicated ghost hunter, the favorite chair. “After that something triggered details must be scoured with a fine tooth comb. in my head… I know [the ghosts] are there and When the hunter is lucky enough to review that I want to prove it,” said Keith of the life- rare one in one-hundred of cases which changing event. involves a real haunt, the data can be mind In the following years Keith began blowing and exhilarating. During his work with researching the science of ghost hunting. This the LGH, he captured Electronic Voice led him to the Louisville Ghost Hunters (LGH), Phenomena (EVP) (also known as ‘spirit talk’) a local ghost hunting group. Keith’s at the Waverly Hills Sanatorium in Louisville. involvement with the LGH helped to shape his According to Keith, Waverly Hills is an organizational chops while initiating him into abandoned Tuberculosis hospital and one of the the spirit of teamwork needed to complete a most haunted locations in the world. successful investigation. With LGH he also While Keith has yet to dig in to the local learned of the complex array of equipment paranormal scene with actual hunts he has needed for the work. founded the first Paranormal research group on Keith is an introverted man with a gentle, soft- Nearly a decade ago Keith spent time in Cleveland’s west side. Dubbed Burning River spoken sensibility. His care-free gate and Illinois, where he finished high school before Paranormal, the group is now organizing online penchant for filtered cigars are characteristically returning to his beloved Louisville. He would and can be found at southern. As an ambassador of his birthplace, later return to Illinois and, with the knowledge www.myspace.com/burningriverparanomal. Keith embodies that famously southern and experience gained from the LGH, assist his Because skeptical ghost hunting is a tech and hospitality. It’s not surprising that, given his brother in establishing of a paranormal group manpower dependent operation of a scientific introversion, he has yet to explore Lakewood there which is active to this day. order, the groups is not yet capitalized or large beyond the Madison and Detroit Avenue Today, a horror movie is hard-pressed to enough to begin hunting locally. However, business districts. However, as an observant scare Keith. Through the bonds of kinship he Keith looks forward exploring the rich history southern man, he’s keenly aware of the has been desensitized by a bad Bozo and the of Lakewood and the region. personality distinctions between the two sight a deceased grandfather’s apparition. Whether romantic love is sufficient to districts. According to Keith, “People are Several years of ghost hunting experience have persuade him into greater exploration of and friendlier on Detroit, they say ‘hi’ and smile… added layers of strength to his mantel of commitment to the community remains to be not so much on Madison.” Though however skepticism. Donning that mantel, Hollywood’s seen. It is clear that Keith brings to Lakewood’s friendly Lakewoodites on the Detroit ley line most tech-savvy, “realistic” imaginations of the Madison Village a unique personal history and may strike him, in this regard the northern cities supernatural strike him as humorous, at best. kindly personality that will only add to the do not come close to those of the south, that A life of horror films, role playing accruing positive developments in that place that beckons his heart’s return. games, ghost hunting clubs, and personal neighborhood and the community beyond. [] But his heart’s desire has drawn him to experience converged and rocked Keith’s Lakewood, his sweetheart’s home town. It was psyche into entertaining a new perspective on love at first site, so to speak. Keith and his the paranormal, that of the skeptical believer. As girlfriend met online. It happened not through a a liberator of more backward, outdated dating website or craigslist ad, but through a understandings of the ghostly world it’s no chat room where the two shared common surprise that Keith was born under the sign of interests. After several years of communication Aquarius. His personality bears deeply this he decided to relocate and shack up in typological tendency toward rational, objective Lakewood’s Madison Village neighborhood thought. near Bela Dubby. For Keith, ghost hunting is a scientific Growing up in Kentucky within the endeavor that has less to do with the self-scaring cultural milieu of the modern south has been made so popular with the Blair Witch Project formative to Keith’s perspective on life, people and subsequent reality television programs.