Investigators look for signs of paranormal aboard the whaler Charles W. Morgan
Mystic ? Is the whaling ship Charles W. Morgan haunted?
That's the creepy question a five-member team from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group was trying to answer Friday night as they came to Mystic Seaport to begin an investigation into the strange sightings last summer of a man below deck.
After spending a few hours conducting a preliminary investigation aboard the ship, group founder Andrew Laird said there was enough evidence of paranormal activity in certain areas to warrant a return visit in which a larger team would conduct a full-scale investigation with sophisticated cameras, recording equipment and other devices.
?I'd love to come back, but it's up to them,? Laird said of museum officials.
In the area around the main mast, Laird said tri-field and electromagnetic sensors noted some unusual readings.
A few feet away sat Renee Blais, a ?sensitive,? who said she felt the presence of a seaman named Gerald. Laird described a sensitive as someone who, through the use of senses like touch and smell, can connect with the energy of a certain place.
A few minutes earlier, while running her hand along some of the wooden beams of the ship below the main deck, Blais said she could feel about 15 men getting sick during a large storm. In the cramped area where crewman slept, she said she could feel ?sickness, death and despair.?
Wearing small headlamps, team members inspected the ship Friday night, taking numerous photos and electronic readings. Laird said the team would then review all of its initial findings to determine where best to concentrate on a return visit. The group will also research the ship's history to see how that information matches up with some of the things it found.
The group decided to investigate the Morgan after receiving reports from three different groups of people who said that while touring the ship last summer they saw a 6-foot-tall man in what appeared to be 19th-century clothing working in the front of the ship. They said the man, who had a pipe in his mouth, nodded at them but did not speak. When they went back up to the main deck they asked a museum interpreter what the man was doing but were told no one was down below, and no one was assigned to be on the boat that day.
?I automatically questioned it, but they insisted they saw something down there,? Laird said.
He asked the three groups for more details, and he said they responded with the same accounts. He said the three groups were from Massachusetts, Arizona and New York and did not know each other. They visited within a week's time of each other.
?The fact that we had three reports that were the same made everyone's eyebrows go up,? Laird said. ?We said, 'Maybe we should take a look at this.' ?
Laird said he earlier had received about 40 other reports of possible paranormal activity.
Laird said he then asked the museum for permission to conduct the investigation. The museum gave him the OK.
?A lot of people have an interest in the Charles W. Morgan. It's the main thing they visit when they come to see us,? said museum publicist Mike O'Farrell, who was on hand for Friday night's investigation. ?We're interested in what they find out. It's not so much we believe in ghosts and spirits, but it's a chance to do something fun.?
Laird founded the Rhode Island Paranormal research Group in 1984. It now has 12 members, with plans to soon add one more for the more appropriate number of 13.
The nonprofit group's Web site boasts that it has ?over 20 years of proven experience and dependability? in the field. Laird said the group conducts about 150 investigations a year for people who contact the organization.
Laird said that 90 percent of the time, his group finds a natural explanation for what people are experiencing, whether it's an animal making noise, something structural in the house or a hoax.
?We mainly go in to investigate. We're not saying a place is haunted. We go in with an open mind,? he said.
If group members find indications that a place is being haunted, it proceeds with a more in-depth investigation, which includes the use of special cameras, audio equipment, computers and electronic sensors.
He said the group's findings are based on science, instrument readings and input from psychics.
?This is something we take very seriously,? he said.
This is the type of investigation the group is continuing at Ledge Light in New London Harbor. Laird said his group has determined the picturesque brick lighthouse is indeed haunted by a woman and a group of kids. He said members have caught the woman's voice and sobbing on tape. The group plans to return to the lighthouse on June 3.
The Morgan will be the group's first ship investigation.
In addition to being the world's only surviving wooden whaling ship, the 165-year-old Morgan is a National Historic Landmark. About a thousand men worked aboard the ship during its 60-year career as it made 37 voyages to the world's great oceans in search of whales. They killed many of the huge mammals, and one of them died while in pursuit of their quarry. In the fall of 2007, the museum is scheduled to haul the 350-ton vessel out of the water for a three-year, $3.5 million restoration.
If the ship is inhabited by spirits, it may not surprise some museum employees.
Dawn Johnson, a longtime museum interpreter who used to be assigned to the Morgan, said she used to hate to go down below and close up for the night.
?It was creepy down there at night,? she said. ?It's cold and clammy; you hear moans and creaking, and you wonder what it is.?
Source: http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=00234c ... dfdcce32a0
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