10 Things To Know About Ghosts From A Ghost Hunter

DEARBORN, MI — Are you afraid of a Detroit ghost? Erik Biggs isn’t! The fearless Dearborn native has been ghost hunting for 18 years and is the CEO of the Dearborn Paranormal Research Society of Michigan. Just don’t call him a ghostbuster. Biggs explains, “I’m not a ghostbuster. I’m a scientist trying to figure out what’s going on.” The ghost hunting scientist shared a few things about ghosts we should all know before Halloween:

1. Best place to ghost hunt. Biggs: “Old concert venues, historical sites, places that had a lot of events. Anywhere something traumatic happened.”

2. How to tell if there’s a ghost in your house. Biggs: “Your body is your best detector of unworldly activity. If your hair stands up, or if your head feels funny and you get a bad feeling, then there’s something weird. It’s the fight or flight feeling.

3. Confirmed ghost sighting. Now what? Biggs: “Grab a camera. Start snapping photos. Document where you are in your house when you feel dread or sorrow. Then bring that information to me or another ghost hunter.”

4. What do you do when face to face with a ghost. Biggs: “The natural reaction is to scream and run. That’s dangerous, especially if you’re in an abandoned building and you could run into a beam or fall in a hole. You should breathe and think logically. When I’m with a group, I calm people by saying 'You’re in a group and nothing is going to happen' but that still doesn’t work all the time and people run into the walls.”

5. Do ghosts travel solo or in packs? Biggs: “Go back to the history of the place. If it’s an old house and you have a peaceful feeling, then it’s maybe just one ghost. If it’s someplace where people were murdered, then there are probably a lot of ghosts there.”

6. Some ghosts are friendly. Biggs: “If ghosts were as harmful as TV shows and movies say they are, they’d be killing people all the time.”

7. Some ghosts aren’t friendly. Biggs: “A guy in Rochester called me to investigate his house a few years ago. He had a collection of medieval masks, some cost $40,000 each. I touched one that looked like a Satanic head that used to be used in sacrifices and felt fear coming out of the mask. I also felt someone touch my back. The EVP recorder picked up words that said 'Get out.' There was a physical and threatening feeling. We called the Catholic Church to come out and they did an exorcism and told him to get rid of the masks. I never heard from the guy again.”

8. Ghost hunting equipment. Biggs: “There’s no book on any of this. Some stuff works and some doesn’t. I have an ultra red camera that picks up spectrums, SP 7 Spirit Box (to hear things talking to you), EFR (reads electromagnetic energy), K-2 EMF, Olympus digital voice recorder, walkie talkies for communication, easy listening device amp up low level sounds, electromagnetic pump, DVR system and flair heat-seeking video gun and snap camera.”

9. Can we summon a ghost? Biggs: “Yes. You have to get personal. Get provocative. Yell. Once I brought handcuffs to a haunted cell and banged them on the cell so hard and screamed 'I heard you died here' until things happened.”

10. Where are the most haunted places in Michigan? Biggs: “The Eloise location is very haunted. It was a big, gigantic city in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s. Also, there was the tuberculosis epidemic going on and a lot of unmarked graves. The Holly Hotel is very haunted. Lots of balls of light following people, weird anomalies and things talking in the bathroom. Fort Wayne is haunted. A lot of Indians are buried there and the Indians are tied to the spirit world. We can't say what is out there for sure but I can tell you this. There’s a lot of good and evil that walk this earth and it's a constant battle.”