Deer Population

Chad Trenney

The Hunter

There are many people in this world who have claimed to see ghosts; unfortunately I am not one of those people. It is because I have never seen a ghost that I am a doubtful of the whole after life thing, but I do stay opened minded to the idea. Ever since I was a little boy my Grandmother would tell me scary stories and take me to graveyards just to scare me. These events along with stories that I have heard from other people have helped keep me open to the whole ghost concept. But nothing influenced me more than Joshua P. Warren's book, How to Hunt Ghosts. The way he is able to link everyday occurrences to paranormal happenings really made me question what I believed. But after reading Warren's book I feel that the only fair way to prove ghosts real or unreal is by letting the people decide for themselves. You can say that Warren states only facts but when you look at some of his ideas they are a little bit unconvincing. Until someone proves it true or false, all we have are stories and that is what makes this subject so intriguing to the majority of the population.

One of the stories I have heard was a bone-chilling tale that my roommate, Andrew, told me. About 16 years ago in North Hills, Pennsylvania Andrew's family was looking to build a new house back in the woods. These woods were unsettled and only a few houses had been built in that area. It was said that the woods were in an area of Pennsylvania where extensive amounts of hunting were done in the past, and were full of things paranormal. Despite the information the family decided to move into their new house and it wasn't until about five years after moving in that something was seen.

On a creepy, cool October night, Andrew was lying in bed reading a book called Tuesdays with Morrie, which happens to be about a man who is on his deathbed. When I questioned him about the weather that night he said there really wasn't anything strange other than it was windy, which is more than normal for an October night in Pennsylvania. He also told me that had never seen anything for him to believe in ghosts or anything of the paranormal; that made the story more believable since he was not in the state of mind to see anything out of the ordinary. All the lights in the house were off except for the light that Andrew was using to see his book. After he was through with reading he set his book down and rolled over to go to sleep. It was then he saw something that he would never forget. When he turned he saw a massive man standing in his room below his bunk bed. As Andrew looked down at the man, he realized that was wearing camouflaged clothes and holding a gun. My first impression of this man was that he was a soldier, but Andrew told me that he appeared to a man who was in hunting clothes not an army uniform. Andrew said that the man said nothing and only appeared for a second. When I asked him about his reaction to the man he said that he was scared but not to the point that he would scream. I found this very weird in the sense that Andrew was so young.

Unfortunately for him, that wasn't the only thing that he would see on that unforgettable night in the house. After seeing the man he went into his mother's room to stay with her because he obviously couldn't stay in his own room. As he entered her room his mother awoke and Andrew told her what he had seen. Andrew's mother comforted him and told him not to worry about it. She told him that nothing was going to hurt him and he could sleep on her floor. As he tried to go back to sleep he felt that something was not right in the room; he described that he felt a cool swirling breeze enter the bedroom. Frightened Andrew poked his head up from behind the bed and saw a woman standing there. The woman was whole but appeared in all white. He said that she was wearing a nightgown, and was pacing the floor in a nervous motion. She turned and looked at him with what he described as a look of despair and severe grief. Andrew told me " I have never in my life seen someone that looked more desperate than that woman. It was like she didn't want to live anymore" (Interview). The woman then paced off into nothing and both the woman and the hunter were gone for the night. When he woke up the next morning he told his mom what happened and she told him it was ok. She thought the two people were connected and she advised him that he should find a way to connect them to each other. I found this very odd that a mother could tell her young son that he should connect the two ghosts, but I guess mothers always know best; So he went to the spot where the woman appeared and he told her that he saw the hunter. He then motioned for her to follow him into his room and he pointed to where he had seen the man.

He believed that the woman in the room was the wife of the hunter, and that one night he didn't return. Later in the week, after some research, his mom found out that man did however die on their property but it was not known if this was the person that Andrew saw in his room. Also after Andrew had the two meet he didn't see anything else again. Although there is no proof that the two ghosts were connected it remains a reasonable possibility.

Despite Andrew's conviction in the way he told his experience, and all his fascinating details, it still remains to be only a story. Whether it is true or not is up to the reader. I know that many professional ghost hunters would say that this event was merely a child's imagination running wild, due to the lack of objective evidence he provided. Joshua P. Warren would look at this story and laugh because to him if there no objective evidence then these events, no matter how real they might have been, are not able to be believed as a true ghost encounter. To Warren the only way is to have a legitimate case of a ghost sighting is to provide cold hard evidence such as photographs, electronic voice phenomenons, or a thermometer that recorded a sudden drop in temperature. In How to Hunt Ghosts Warren talks about equipment that you should bring on a ghost hunt if you want your research to be taken seriously. Some of the equipment Warren included on this list was an electromagnetic field meter, an infrared meter, a night-vision scope, and an electrostatic generator (Warren 138,139). I personally do not know too many people who have these tools just lying around their house, so when a ghost comes out they can gather all sorts of objective information. To me many of Warren's strategies do not apply to the common person. Most people who see ghosts are your everyday people, most of which would rather have never seen the ghost in the first place.

I feel, rather than just dismiss all of the people who claim to see