Motion detectors, camcorders with night vision, night vision goggles and infrared temperature measurement devices.

Sounds like equipment for a search and rescue deployment. Think again. These devices, along with others, are used to find souls of the dead. Or, plainly speaking, ghosts.

Paranormal investigators Pat Elliott and Christy Nelson, Sidney, have been documenting evidence to support the idea of an afterlife, and it’s the basis for their organization Eastern Montana Paranormal Society. “What could be more important than validating life after death?” said Elliott, who studied under The International Ghost Hunters Society. “We all have an invested interest in this work, and the assurance that life does go on can bring meaning to our lives and comfort those who are grieving or are fearful of the unknown.”

Elliott became interested in paranormal activity seven years ago when he listened to a well-known ghost hunter on the radio play “Ghost Voices.” He was skeptical at first, like anyone would be, but he was still intrigued.

“I decided to conduct my own investigation, lacking any training whatsoever and armed with nothing but an audio cassette recorder and microphone, I went to a rural cemetery,” he said.

He had asked the “spirits” a series of questions such as if they knew his name. The following day, Elliott reviewed the tape. He heard nothing on side A and switched to side B. “I was almost falling asleep in the recliner when suddenly a man with a British accent very clearly and succinctly said, ‘Pat!...Pat!’ and I woke up very quickly.”

He listened to the tape repeatedly. “That’s when I knew for myself that this was the real deal,” he said.

It wasn’t until recently that Elliott and Nelson rekindled their friendship in Sidney, and with open minds they began their investigations.

So far they’ve explored local businesses and residences in the MonDak region with startling results. On a typical ghost hunt, someone asks them to investigate their business or residence. They conduct an interview to gather data, then they visit the premises and make a strategy for the equipment they’ll use and other details. They take careful note of the climate and anything that may be misleading in photographs like a streak on the wall or a reflection in the mirror.

The equipment used includes electromagnetic sensing units, trifield meters, digital audio recorders, digital cameras and camcorders with night vision and, coming soon, a parabolic microphone to amplify the voices.

Because their voice recorders will not playback the ghost voices in real time, they also use a digital scanner that rapidly scans radio frequencies. Ghost hunters have found that ghosts communicate through radio waves. The scanner allows them to hear the ghost’s responses instantly rather than waiting to replay it later on a voice recorder.

Elliott says the voices he’s heard are “not radio stations because the spirits speak over and through the rapidly changing frequencies. As the scanner moves quickly over the FM band, a voice will come on slower and say, ‘Hello Pat.’ It’s literally a telephone to the dead.”

During investigations, Elliott and Nelson say they’ve heard the sounds of footsteps, voices, whistling and creaking doors. They’ve witnessed silhouettes of people in camera flashes, have smelled distinct fragrances and felt sudden changes in room temperature. “Some spirits have set off our motion sensors and the alarms on our electromagnetic sensing units when we asked them to do so,” Elliott added.

They have snapped photos of “orbs,” ghosts as round balls of light, and “vortexes,” a group of spirits moving together collectively.

With so much documentation gathered, the Sidney researchers created a Web site for visitors to look, listen and drum up their own conclusions.

“Each person should make their own decision with an objective or skeptical mind,” Nelson said. “This is the evidence that we’ve gathered, and we’ve come to a conclusion about what it means for us, but you can make your own decision about what it means to you.”

Their most famous piece of evidence comes from a visit to the old community services building in Sidney. It’s an EVP, or Electronic Voice Phenomena, (basically an audio recording) of a woman’s voice saying “Niyah” over the top of Nelson’s voice. Naturally, criticism has befallen the two researchers as it sounds like another human is speaking. They defend their data saying that a camcorder and voice recorder were both placed at opposite ends of the hallway. The ghost’s voice was loud on both, but Nelson’s was loud only on the camcorder where she was located.

Elliott says he sees ghost hunting as a progressive science that hopefully will become mainstream in the future. He notes what was once outrageous like going to the moon, is now considered normal. “A lot of things right now that science cannot measure and prove through existing scientific methods will someday become a legitimate science.”

Curious readers interested in the site can go to www.emps-online.com and contact Elliott and Nelson there. A good place to start is the EVPs. Then look at the photos and videos. Just remember to turn the volume all the way up, use headphones and listen to the recording several times to hear them clearly. Comments are welcome at the site.

reporter@sidneyherald.com