HALLOWEEN HAUNTS AND HITS
Ghost busting; monster music
Beth Fowler is a vision in black. Her blond hair falls on her shoulders like frost tips, and her long, black-painted fingernails poke out from fingerless gloves holding a Doctor Who bag. Her breath comes out in curls of white in the cold night air.
It’s 8:08 p.m., Friday, Oct. 13, and Fowler, a paranormal investigator is standing with her back to the street, taking pictures of the graves where her grandparents lie at the Edmonton Cemetery.
She’s searching for paranormal activity. The cemetery, in the Queen Mary Park neighbourhood at 107 Avenue and 118 Street, was established in 1886 and is the final resting place for some of the city’s pioneers.
Fowler has been investigating paranormal activity for more than 20 years. She started the Alberta Paranormal Investigation Society, but it’s on pause as she navigates health and personal issues.
Most of her experiences have a mundane explanation, she says — but not everything.
Fowler’s equipment includes a K2 meter, which is an electromagnetic field detector to help locate ghosts, an EMF meter (a highly sensitive device to detect changes in electric and magnetic fields), a recorder to capture sounds and a video recorder.
It’s 8:19 p.m. as Fowler navigates through some of the older parts of the cemetery. Sprays of flowers and cornucopias with Thanksgiving treats lie at headstones, a testament to the ties that bind the living to the dead.
She stops at various graves to admire the love and respect they show, sometimes to read an inscription and other times to brush off stray leaves.
A group of kids play Marco Polo while laughing and singing in the cemetery. Fowler shakes her head with a smidgen of annoyance. It’s 8:50 p.m.
She stops at a crypt.
First, she runs her EMF to establish a baseline — to make sure there is no magnetic or electric field. The meter is as quiet as the surroundings.
Then, in a voice as clear as a bell, Fowler asks her questions.
“Is there anybody here who would like to communicate with us? We’re here out of utmost respect.” The machine chirps.
“Are you male?”
The machine chirps.
“Is this crypt yours?”
No sound.
“But are you interred in this cemetery?”
The machine chirps, then continues to trill.
“Can you make this machine go again?”
Another chirp.
“If you want us to leave, make it go high again.”
The machine chirrups and chirps for a few seconds like a bird in springtime.
“That is so weird,” Fowler says. “Even I’m surprised when it does that. The fact that it was interacting, trying to speak through the meter, really is interesting.”
A SECOND VISIT
It is 9:28 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 14. It’s a few degrees warmer, though raining. Fowler emerges from the car dressed all in black.
She walks to the pioneer area of the Mount Pleasant Cemetery at 106 Street and 54 Avenue.
She stops occasionally to use her EMF meter, to ask if there is anyone who wants to leave a message.
It’s 9:50 p.m. An owl hoots in the distance.
The batteries in Fowler’s EMF and K2 meters are drained.
“That’s strange,” she says. “They were fully charged and we barely used them. This has never happened before.”
Fowler ducks under a pine tree, shielding herself from the rain as she changes the batteries.
The street light across from her flickers. She looks up. The other street lights glow mundanely.
People have reported seeing shadowy figures walk around Mount Pleasant cemetery, she says. “But that can just be branches moving in the street lights.”
After a few minutes, Fowler is ready.
“You can’t really go into these things saying, ‘We are going to get something,’ because you are going to get disappointed,” she says.
One of the weirdest investigations, she says, was an overnight investigation at the Clive Hotel, about 140 km south of Edmonton. Fowler and her team were starting to get tired and had an impromptu singing session. That’s when her meters started going off.
“It looked like someone was trying to sing with us,” she says. “It was very weird.”
It’s 10:21 p.m. and Fowler is back by her car.
She decides to give it one last shot. After conducting baseline tests that show there is no electric or magnetic activity she asks her questions.
“Is somebody here with us?” The meter chirps.
“Are you male?” Silence.
“Are you female?”
The machine chirps. It chirps a few more times.
“Do you want us to go home?” Silence.
“Do you want us to stay?” Silence.
“Are you still here?” Silence.
“Are you still with us?” Silence.
Fowler shrugs, gets in her car and leaves for the night. But she’ll be back to try to speak to the spirits, another day, another time.