New Haven Register (New Haven, CT)
West Haven couple seeks out bumps in the night
WEST HAVEN — Sometimes the apparition in your bedroom is just the shadow of tree branches blowing in the wind, illuminated by headlights from passing cars.
But not always.
So say John and Diana McManus, married paranormal investigators and West Haven residents. The couple has volunteered their services through their Liberty Ghost Hunters group since 2017, looking to first comfort homeowners instead of alarm them.
“We try to prove it’s not paranormal first,” said Diana McManus. “A lot of times things do have an explanation and we don’t want people to be afraid to live in their homes.”
Other times, they say, it is in fact the paranormal.
Diana McManus said the pair and their seven associates — including twin psychic mediums, tech wizards and a minister — have “all the equipment you would see on any paranormal show,” but their intentions are not to exploit the paranormal.
“We’re in it to help people. We’re not in it to gain fame or money,” said John McManus.
When money is involved, it’s not the Liberty Ghost Hunters who profit. Sometimes, for example, the pair and their associates will conduct investigations of places such as Masonic lodges: they present their research as a fundraiser for those lodges, selling tickets for admission to the presentation.
Evidence review
Childhood experiences with the paranormal drew the couple together, they said.
As a teenager, John McManus said he was having a bad day when suddenly he felt a hand on his back when no one else was around.
“It really freaked me out,” he said.
It wasn’t until his late 20s, he said, that he realized it was a deceased relative offering him support.
Diana McManus said she is an empath, which she said has made her always able to sense the paranormal. She said her hope is that using her strong sense of connection can help to demystify the paranormal for others. An empath “feels and absorbs other people’s emotions and/or physical symptoms,” according to Psychology Today online.
“I was always scared as a child when I heard things. I don’t want anyone’s child to be afraid to sleep in their bedroom,” she said.
Now, the actual process of conducting the investigations can be time-consuming, they said.
“It’s hours and hours of evidence review,” Diana McManus said.
She said they may set up around five to eight cameras to capture different angles of dominoes, a ping pong ball or a house of cards for several hours to detect any movement, so the process of reviewing multiple versions of the same three- to fivehour span takes awhile. Once they have the footage,
the pair will review to see whether they can discover if there is anything that might disprove the presence of the paranormal.
On the ground, the pair has other methods — such as readers that can detect shifts in electromagnetic activity, which they use so paranormal entities can answer yes-or-no questions, and a spirit box.
The spirit box is a radio that rapidly shifts through channels on the AM frequency.
“It’s flipping through 220 stations backwards, so you get little clips of whatever is coming through the radio,” John McManus said.
To operate it, Diana McManus wears a blindfold and noise canceling headphones to create complete sensory deprivation. Separately, John McManus and others who live or work at the site will ask questions of the spirits; Diana, unaware of the questions, makes note of the audio clips that comprise an entity’s answer — if it answers at all.
“All evidence collected is the thoroughly scrutinized for any possible explanations that would cause the activity to take place. and then compiled to be presented to the client(s),” the couple explains online. It includes historical reviews of properties and events that have taken place there.
“The (spirits) we’ve encountered thankfully have been, for the most part, harmless,” John McManus said. “Like family members or part of the building from the past. We’ve had a couple where it’s just a loop in time that’s stuck: it happens every time where it’s the same thing, with the same location and it happens like clockwork. There’s not much you can do with those.”
Sometimes the spirits are more playful, he said.
“You get the fun ones that make fun of you or call you names,” he said.
But it’s not always fun and games.
“We do get some people speaking vicious. We dealt with a nasty entity at one of our locations. When we gave a presentation, it slapped one of our investigators,” Diana McManus said.
John McManus said they have video footage: there was a blip of light flashing before the investigator’s face shortly before he felt something. When McManus shone his flashlight on the investigator at the time, he said there was a handprint on his face that began to turn red.
“I get my hair pulled sometimes. We get poked,” Diana McManus said.
Despite that encounter, the Liberty Ghost Hunters say they mostly have fun. The two occasionally record a podcast, in which they may play games or conduct interviews. The podcast has helped them to reach clients as far as New Jersey, as well as some others even farther from the region who they have referred to more local investigators.
“In some cases the paranormal can be really detrimental to a family or a person, but most times you take it with a grain of salt,” John McManus said.
The couple and their team also offer “paranormal remediation,” which can include learning to live with the paranormal “phenomenon” or trying to make it leave, according to the couple.
Diana McManus said they “use the psychics to try to move things on” and “also work with a minister to perform blessings” but only with permission from the client.
Just don’t take it too lightly, they say.
“We warn against Ouija boards and opening portals,” Diana McManus said.
“Why poke the hornets’ nest?” John said.
“You don’t want to do that,” Diana said. “But if you did, we would be there to help.”