Earlier this year, Dwayne Claud and his team received reports of strange activity at a private residence in an undisclosed location. The homeowners were having claims of various household items flying across the rooms, being physically hit and scratched by unseen forces, and hearing voices within the house.

The house was believed to be terrorized by an intelligent ghost. At all supposed paranormal sites, Claud and a psychic do a walkthrough of the residence to test its validity and basically see if it is worth the expense to bring the whole team and equipment out to the house.

Claud and his partner, a psychic, were walking towards a flight of stairs, when suddenly the woman fell forward.

“I looked at her and said, ‘you didn’t slip, you were pushed weren’t you,’ and she said, ‘yes,’” explained Claud. “When we went back to listen to the audio tape, you could clearly hear on the tape a voice saying, ‘watch her fall,’ and then you hear her fall down the stairs.”

This scene seems like the perfect time to call 555-2368 for the Ghostbusters, but Ray and the gang are nowhere to be found. Fortunately for Claud and his partner, both are real-life ghost investigators and are experienced in the field. They are part of the Western New York Paranormal team and can be reached at (585)399-7765. Claud, director of WNY Paranormal, and his team will not come out to your house with proton packs, but for a free consultation they will arrive with various recording devices, visual and audio, to assess the paranormal situation.

When it comes to the investigation, most people have the wrong idea from watching too much television and movies. The WNY Paranormal does not show up and encounter a ghost that jumps out to say “boo.” Their investigations are tedious. They include recording visuals with cameras or camcorders and audio through a cassette tape recorder, which all appear to show nothing at first. It is not until after the day or night of recording is through that the data is reviewed and paranormal evidence can be found. Claud’s area of interest is electronic voice phenomena (EVP).

“We will use analog tapes with a tape recorder and external microphone. We ask a question and pause. We are basically giving it time to respond to us,” he said. “Then we go back and listen to the tape, often you hear voices in the background responding to you… a voice that’s not recognizable.”

While investigating the private residence case earlier this year, Claud set up an EVP recorder when no one was in the house and found some remarkable evidence. When his team reviewed the data they were able to hear what they believe was the sound of Native American drums and chanting at a frequency outside the range of the human ear.

At this remarkable location, WNY Paranormal was also able to pick up more evidence through the use of a Sony digital camera. “The interesting thing with film is that it picks up on the infrared spectrum a little bit,” said Claud. “That’s why a lot of the time it will pick up things you didn’t see with your eyes.” After reviewing the film of the residence, the team uncovered pictures of unexplainable mist that was invisible to the naked eye.

For Keith Kennedy, a University at Buffalo junior communications major, living on his family’s farm in Newfane, NY his whole life perhaps brought him closer to the paranormal than he’ll ever know. His family lived in an ancient house on the property in his younger days.

“It was so old that it was actually insulated with newspapers,” said Kennedy. “I guess it was an old morgue and a lot of weird shit used to happen. It was just like a movie; the doors would creak and open on their own and there were a lot of unexplainable shadows.”

Instances like these are can easily be written off as nothing and are hard to support with evidence. However, there is one moment etched in Kennedy and his sister’s minds forever.

“One time my sister and I were at my grandma’s house, also on the family farm, about a minute away from my house, and we saw an apparition,” Kennedy said. “I was sleeping upstairs, when my sister ran up the stairs to wake me up and look out the window. Next door to my grandma’s house was a cemetery and we saw this chick with no legs in a white dress floating through it. I don’t see how we both could have imagined the same thing.”

Experiences like these are what the WNY Paranormal team is all about. “Our goal is to gather and collate data that will lead to a better understanding of ghosts and hauntings,” the website states as their philosophy. “In the process of pursuing that goal, we also wish to aid any individuals having problems dealing with or understanding a situation. We hope to do this by educating them as to the true nature of their situation and giving them the information and understanding to create a livable resolution for the person and the spirit.”

“I never knew real ghost investigators existed,” said Kennedy. “It would be cool to find out if any paranormal activity was really [going on] there.”

With eerie evidence like the kind found in these stories it is easy to understand why a group of nine volunteers respond with excitement to the eight to ten calls they receive in an average week. Their investigations may not be as action-packed as the Ghostbusters movies, but their experiences are real. Whether you have a personal experience with an angry spirit, find their paranormal activity interesting, or even if you’re a skeptic, their website, wnyparanormal.com, proves one thing: somewhere out there, just a phone call away, is a group of highly trained specialists that ain’t afraid of no ghosts.