A.J. Spain and Eric Miller are just your average 20-somethings. They spend their weekends taking road trips to St. Cloud, Wisconsin and the Twin Cities. They go out with their friends at night, stay up into the morning hours and participate in activities that make their adrenaline rush.
But their road trips are for investigations. Their friends are other members of the Southern Minnesota Paranormal Study Group. Their idea of a good time is attempting to explain the inexplicable.
"Paranormal is really just anything out of the normal," said Miller, a senior marketing student at Minnesota State and team tech manager.
The group gets the most calls during the fall and winter. It will take on most cases in the five-state region, and cases involving children take highest priority.
Miller is quick to admit they do meet people who claim to have seen some "pretty weird stuff." People have confessed to seeing things as unbelievable as water monsters, though that is not the majority of what the team sees.
"We don't go hunting for UFOs or Chupacobras or anything," Spain, one of the team's case managers, said. "Most of what we get is 'I feel creepy here' or 'something is not quite right there.'"
Spain and Miller are just two of the 11 members in the Southern Minnesota team. There are five people in the management team and six investigators. The age of individuals range anywhere from 22 to around 50, and the team's members hold day jobs such as student, taxi driver, security officer and flight nurse.
According to Miller, team members get two reactions when they tell others about their paranormal hobby.
"They either think it's really cool, or they think we're nuts," he said. "I don't think I've ever gotten an in between."
The members' reasons for joining the team are as varied as the individuals themselves.
For Spain, it was the realization that she wasn't alone in her experiences.
"I personally had a lot of experiences growing up in my parent's house that I can't explain," she said.
For Miller, the paranormal has been an interest since childhood, as well as a way of coming to terms with the after life.
"I've loved ghosts and scary things ever since I was little, and I'm a huge horror fan," he said. "I'm scared to death of dying, so it kind of gives me closure that there is something after death."
The group's newest member, recent MSU graduate Stacy Huntington Scofield, said the interview process to join the team was one of the most intense she's ever been through. The applicant stands before a panel and gets asked questions anywhere from "what kind of equipment do you have?" to "What is your favorite television show?"
"I studied metaphysics as a philosophy major, and I think there is a possible link between science and religion," Scofield said. "I think the paranormal might be a tool to find that link."
The investigation team is a member of the Trans Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS). TAPS is the paranormal team featured on the Sci-Fi channel's popular show, "Ghost Hunters." They follow many of the TAPS family rules, including not charging for their investigations. But according to Spain and Miller, the television shows aren't an accurate reflection of their work.
"People see on 'Ghost Hunters' how they're always seeing stuff, and it's not like that," Miller said. "We've been on maybe one case where it's pretty active, but most of the time we're just sitting around in the dark for a long time."
The team works on the basis of logic and initially tries to find a practical explanation for everything. Spain said that 80 percent of the time they are able to debunk a case using science.
For instance, the team had a recent investigation where the homeowner claimed someone kept touching her in the hallway. When the team got there they realized the hallway was so narrow that it could have easily been something as simple as a pants leg brushing up against her calf.
Another common scientific explanation for strange occurrences is the presence of certain electromagnetic fields.
These fields can cause those with a high sensitivity to feel nauseous, have sensory hallucinations or feel like someone is watching them. In those instances, it's as simple as bringing out an electrician to solve the problem.
Other times, the cases aren't so easy to solve.
"We've seen things, we've heard things, where there is just no possible way anything [logical] could have caused it," Miller said.
On one of her first investigations, Spain found herself alone in a section of the basement of Sauk Centre's Palmer House Hotel, while another member went two floors up to get some equipment. A few minutes later, Spain heard distinct footsteps coming down the stairs. But when she went to go meet up with her team member, there was no one to be found. Her team member ended up coming down the stairs about five minutes after Spain heard those footsteps.
"I didn't want to go up there and tell them, 'I'm the new girl and I'm already hearing stuff,'" she said. But the inexplicable footsteps were picked up on the recorder as well.
Recordings, videos and pictures of the investigations can be accessed in the evidence vault on the group's Web site, www.Minnesotaghosts.com.
The group has a rule that teams consist of at least two people. The rule is as much for the members' personal safety as it is to eliminate fear.
"When you're by yourself your mind will go crazy on you, but when you're with someone else it's more of an adrenaline rush," Miller said.
"I don't think I've ever been scared before," he added. "I've been scared of the houses we've been in, for safety reasons, but never because of anything paranormal, yet."
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