The Forever Bronze Tanning Salon is a cheerful white-stucco building with hardwood floors, potted plants and overflowing magazine racks.
Business is brisk, but eight women in the basement aren't here to work on that perfect glow. In fact, what they're looking for is more likely to turn them pale.
Welcome to Ghost Hunting 101, a five-week course that covers the nuts and bolts of seeking out spirits.
For $45, students learn ghost-hunting basics, including typical types of entities (poltergeist, intelligent and residual) and necessary equipment (flashlight, notebook, tape recorder and 35 mm camera), and they attend four field trips to haunted locations along the Wasatch Front.
The class also lets students share their own encounters with the paranormal.
"In my house, I often smell a scent of heavy men's cologne when no one is around," one woman said.
Marie Jackson, a ghost-hunting instructor, stands with some of her ghost-hunting equipment. (Kim Burgess)
"My husband and I used to live in a house where we could hear footsteps in the attic at night," said another.
The group is relaxed and comfortable, though most students wished to be anonymous. "My son probably wouldn't want to know that I'm coming here," one said with a laugh.
Instructors Tifany Jorgensen and Marie Jackson are used to the combination of fascination and embarrassment their class generates. In fact, breaking down ghost-hunting stereotypes is one of their primary goals.
"We're not all weird gothic Nine Inch Nails followers. In our group, we have a scientist and an archeologist," Jorgensen said.
"She's right," Jackson added. "It's not like we're spending the night in cemeteries or anything. We're pretty normal, everyday people."
For Jackson, being a ghost hunter means fitting in investigations between caring for her 3-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son and appearing in community theater productions.
Jorgensen holds a day job at the salon, which her family owns. Her earliest ghostly encounter was seeing a cloaked figure in the hallway of her Emigration Canyon home as a girl. "It would run toward my bedroom and disappear just as it got there," she said.
Though Jackson has never seen a ghost in person, the spirit world has always been a fascination. "My life goal is to see a ghost," she says.
"My life goal is also for her to see a ghost," Jorgensen says with a laugh.
The exchange is typical. Jokes flow easily between them, particularly when they finish each other's sentences, a habit that developed over three years of ghost hunting together.
Their partnership began with private investigations of haunted homes and businesses. People paid them to determine if the property was haunted, a process that includes taking photos and making audio recordings to listen for electronic voice phenomena (EVP), the most coveted evidence in ghost hunting. EVP involves walking through the haunted location with a tape recorder. At the time, no sound is audible; but when the tape is played back, voices appear.
"When you hear your first EVP, it's like Christmas," Jorgensen said.
Both instructors emphasize that for them, ghost hunting is science, not superstition.
"The things we find are not explainable. . . . We as ghost hunters go in there trying to prove that there isn't a haunting. That's our approach. You want that perfect balance of skepticism and believing. If you believe too much, then everything is a ghost; if you believe too little, then nothing is," Jackson said.
After gaining experience with five investigations, the two attended a ghost-hunting class to deepen their skills but were disappointed by its lack of teacher-student interaction. A six-month debate led them to offer their own class in January. Many of their 11 students have stayed in touch and will participate in field trips with the current class, which is their second.
Both believe they are successful teachers because they have a fun, relaxed attitude. "We try not to intimidate people and [to] maintain a good reputation. A lot of this is word of mouth," Jackson said.
During the class at Forever Bronze, they clearly had a good time demonstrating ghost hunters' equipment, including some that has fallen out of use. Jackson giggled as she held two metal dowsing rods. "I can never get these to point straight. We don't use these. Some people do, and that's fine, but we don't."
Another is a Geiger counter, made famous in the "Ghostbusters" movies.
Between the funny times are tips: Never whisper while you're recording EVP; make note of any strange noises you hear; always carry fresh batteries.
Next fall, Jorgensen and Jackson will have a chance to impart this ghost-hunting wisdom to more students when they teach a course through University of Utah Continuing Education.
They hope this new teaching experience will give them access to haunted sites on campus.
To contact Jackson and Jorgensen, visit http://www.hauntedutah.bravehost.com.
Source: http://www.sltrib.com/slc/ci_3731492
