CNHI News Service

JOPLIN, Mo. ? Beneath a waxing moon, a team of paranormal investigators haunted the old Prosperity School recently and declared that some of the inhabitants were not among the living.

They trained infrared cameras on halls and stairways, swept the building with electromagnetic sensors and dowsing rods, and held seances in the hope that this would be the investigation to yield irrefutable evidence of the afterlife.

"My mission is to capture a full-bodied apparition on videotape," said Karen Shillings, the director of the Central Arkansas Society for Paranormal Research, or CASPR. "Ultimately, that is what every ghost hunter is seeking."

The two-story, brick school was built in 1907 and named for the two-fisted mining camp that sprang up in the decades after the discovery of lead in a field. Although Prosperity is now little more than a handful of houses along County Road 200 northeast of Joplin, at the turn of the last century it was a thriving but sometimes violent town of 1,500 residents.

By the 1940s, however, Prosperity's luck was running out, according to local historian Brad Belk. The school closed in 1962 and sat vacant for 30 years before being renovated into a bed-and-breakfast.

It is now owned by Janet and Richard Roberts, who moved from Dallas after purchasing the school over Thanksgiving 2002. The couple say their guests have reported some unusual experiences, such as ghostly knocking and otherworldly voices. Janet Roberts, 53, said she hasn't seen anything unnatural, but 56-year-old Richard Roberts allows witnessing "a dark figure" of a man walking from the kitchen to the front door.

The Robertses also say they have heard rumors of a murder that took place in the 1950s in the building, but so far they have failed to turn up any evidence to substantiate the story.

Belk said he had researched the school on behalf of previous owners but had never discovered any murders. He added, though, that his area of expertise was the 1930s and '40s, and he may have missed something that occurred later.

Shillings said she heard about the allegedly haunted school from her brother, who was working in Joplin at the time, and she asked the owners if her group could investigate.

Not 'ghost busters'

Shillings doesn't like the term "ghost buster," because CASPR (like the friendly cartoon ghost) isn't a spook-elimination service. On the contrary, the 40-year-old Hot Springs, Ark., native hopes the spirits will stick around while the team does its work. And although the group didn't capture a "full-bodied apparition," psychic Kay Tope said it gathered enough evidence to conclude that the school is, in her words, "actively haunted."

An active haunting, according to Tope, a 49-year-old registered nurse from Hot Springs, occurs when "anomalies move and engage in different types of activity." She said this is in contrast to a residual haunting, which is an echo of a past event that keeps repeating, as if on an endless loop. There also is a distinction between spirits and ghosts, she said: Spirits visit from the other side, while ghosts are spirits who are stuck on Earth.

But Joe Nickell, a forensic expert and regular contributor to the Skeptical Inquirer, a magazine published by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, is skeptical.

"I don't know them," Nickell said. "I wasn't there."

But the techniques employed by CASPR are similar to those of dozens of other groups, he said, and all are based on bad science. They use amateur equipment and are not trained in forensic techniques, and when they gather data that they do not understand ? such as photos of ghostly orbs or audio of what seems to be voices from beyond the grave ? they attribute it to paranormal phenomena instead of seeking a natural explanation.

"Science has never found a ghost," Nickell said.

Most such groups are made up well-meaning people, Nickell said, but they turn off their critical thinking skills in favor of a desperately wanted emotional response.

Believers

But Shillings and the rest of the six-member team are firm believers in things that go bump in the night, and all attribute their faith to personal experience. Chuck Upton, of Lonoke, Ark., for example, said he became interested in paranormal research after he and his wife experienced some odd things while staying in Room 218 at the Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Ark.

Later, they learned that the room was considered haunted.

Tope, the group's resident psychic, said she has had many conversations with ghosts and has even channeled a few of the undead.

"I think we have a choice (when we die) as to whether we go on to where we're supposed to be or not," she said.

Most people have a ghost story or two to relate, Tope said: Either they're living with a ghost or have lived with one in the past.

"It's like emotion is tying these spirits to a place," she said. "Some ghosts, for example, are particularly fond of a job they had, and don't want to leave. They just don't know they're gone, and often don't know what year it is. And there is not necessarily a dark side to this. You get playful ghosts, especially children."

So why do CASPR members do what they do?

"It's the thrill of the hunt," Shillings said. "I'm after irrefutable evidence ? a full-body apparition that nobody can deny. And, I'm having fun along the way. I enjoy researching the history involved in the investigations, the adventure, and the company of the other team members. It's not the thrill of being scared."

CASPR has researched dozens of haunted places in the past year, she said. The group does not accept pay for its services, and all the members contribute a significant amount of time and their own resources to an ongoing project that, Shillings said, could shake the foundations of science.

But, even if Shillings never achieves her goal of indisputable evidence in this life, she has a backup plan. It is similar to the arrangement the great magician, escape artist and psychic debunker Harry Houdini had with his wife. Houdini devised a 10-word code that he would attempt to communicate to his wife, if possible, within a decade after his death.

"I've made a pact with my mother and a few other people that I will come back as a full body apparition," Shillings said. "I don't intend to be a ghost, but I do intend to do some ghostly things."

After Houdini's death in 1926, many mediums claimed contact, but none was able to transmit the prearranged code.

Shillings is undeterred by Houdini's historic failure.

"If I can't do it," she said confidently, "then we'll know it cannot be done."

Max McCoy writes for The Joplin (Mo.) Globe.