A craze for ghost-hunting took hold among the neighborhood children for several weeks this fall. As usual, it was YouTube's fault. Somehow, an enthusiasm for certain channels purporting to depict actual paranormal investigations became widespread, and soon pint-sized ghost hunters were roaming the neighborhood.
Whether ghosts are real or not is the kind of thing children discuss seriously with one another, and the position they have been trained to take by their parents may seem much more convincing outside on a sunny afternoon than in a dark bedroom at night. An adult who claims not only to believe in ghosts but also to be able to prove their existence using scientific gizmos is naturally a fascinating figure to a child.
I understand this fascination because I remember feeling it myself. When I was around Axl's age, I too was drawn to the figure of the paranormal investigator, who combines the authority of science with the swagger of a rogue adventurer. Somehow I came across books about this sort of thing at the time—Jay Anson's (allegedly nonfiction) Amityville Horror is one I remember, and surely there would also have been a volume or two from the Time-Life Mysteries of the Unknown series. Then, when I was in fact almost precisely the same age as Axl, along came Ghostbusters.
Ghostbusters was a blast mainly for its rude humor and creative special effects, but I also remember appreciating the satisfyingly imagined equipment the team carried for detecting and capturing ghosts. I think I would have understood, even as a fifth grader, that equipment for actually capturing ghosts was likely to remain fictional forever. But if one accepted that ghosts were real, it seemed only inevitable that at some point there would be technology capable of detecting, monitoring, and perhaps even communicating with them. The gadgets used in the movie were just props, I knew, but I enjoyed imagining that one day there might be the real thing.
Axl and Belle don't have to imagine, because they are growing up in Amazon's century. One day, after watching one of his ghost-hunting YouTubers for an hour, Axl expressed curiosity about something called a "spirit box," which he said had been utilized in one of the videos he'd been watching.
I was doubtful that the real world contained any such thing, but then there it was listed in the description of one of the videos, with an affiliate link in case you wanted to buy one for yourself. According to the product description, spirit boxes "utilize radio frequency sweeps to generate white noise from existing FM and AM bands which theories suggest may provide an entity the energy they need to be heard."
Amazon calls itself "Earth's most customer-centric company, where customers can find and discover anything they might want to buy online." I should not have been surprised, therefore, that the company would stand ready to serve those among its customers interested in, say, spending the night in an abandoned house where something awful happened thirteen years ago this very night and desiring to equip themselves with the tools necessary to detect and record every terrifying indication that there is more to the world than we can see.
Axl decided that the $90 price tag for the spirit box was too rich for his blood and turned to building something out of Legos, but I kept poking around.
Some of the results returned by a search on Amazon for "ghost investigation equipment" constituted simple repackaging of gadgets with legitimate uses outside the realm of paranormal research, such as night vision goggles and thermal imaging devices, motion detectors, and electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors.
Other results were for devices purpose-built for the field, including not only the aforementioned spirit boxes but also something called an EVP ("electronic voice phenomenon") recorder, which is advertised as being "excellent for interacting with ghosts or spirits when asking questions or on a hunt." Why might one need this particular device, you might ask? Because, the ad copy solemnly informs us, "disembodied voices usually occur at a frequency lower than normal human ears can detect."
If you are ready to launch your own first ghost hunt, a kit featuring an EMF meter, an EVP recorder, a spirit box with built-in recorder, and—"for investigating and general safety"—a flashlight can be yours for only $239.99.
As it happened, when the neighborhood ghost hunts kicked off, Axl was already the proud owner of an EMF detector, purchased in the mistaken belief that it was a Geiger counter during a period of fascination with the Chernobyl disaster last year. The letters "EMF" might simply have stood for "ghost" as far as the children were concerned, because they never seemed to entertain the possibility that the gadget's needle might move in response to anything other than a restless spirit. For a couple of weeks, there were excited reports of apparent hauntings throughout the neighborhood, including in one boy's bedroom closet, where the EMF detector returned its highest readings by far. (Judging by my own relationship with my bedroom closet at that age, this would seem to have been ominous news for any fourth grader.)
This year, of course, there was to be a full moon on Halloween. As the day drew nigh, Axl was keen to take advantage of this auspicious coincidence by organizing a sort of marquee ghost hunt after dark. But this plan foundered on the twin rocks of pandemic anxiety and conflicting commitments among his friends' families, and in the end we left some treat bags on the front steps for any trick-or-treaters who dared to make the rounds this year and gathered around the television to watch Hubie Halloween, the new Adam Sandler movie.
* * *
The day after Halloween dawned crisp and sunny. In the spirit of the Mexican holiday Day of the Dead, I suggested we take a walk in the Waldhurst cemetery.
There was a particular grave I was thinking of visiting—no, not the ostentatious monument over the mouldering remains of Waldhurst's founding robber baron, but the more modest markers at the final resting places of the married couple who built and lived in what is now the Oakes house in the late 1800s.
When we moved into this house, a decade ago, we received from the previous owners a folder of historical materials about the house. Leafing through old clippings and typewritten notes, we learned that the house had briefly been home to Waldhurst's first post office and had also been moved—pulled through the block, really—to its current location sometime around 1955. And we learned the names of those first two residents.
During that first summer, a long walk brought me to the gates of the Waldhurst cemetery for the first time. Strolling the ranks of headstones, with no particular purpose, I happened to pause, look down, and see that I was standing at the graves of this very man and woman. I was still in a period of adjustment to Waldhurst after 35 years in big coastal cities. I had my eyes open for anything that might qualify as an advantage to life in a small, rural community. Somehow, this discovery seemed to qualify: One of the virtues of a small community was that one could walk for twenty minutes and visit the graves of the original residents' of one's house, now dead a hundred years. I wondered if any of the succeeding residents of this house had ever likewise paid their respects and resolved to do so regularly myself.
Ten years later, I've never been back to visit these two once. However, it has occurred to me to wonder if one of them might not be visiting me.
Sometimes, when I am brushing my teeth or grooming my magnificent beard in the upstairs bathroom with the door closed, there comes what sounds for all the world like someone rapping, once, on the door. It is not the kind of knock that signals let me in (and I know better than to go around throwing open doors to unknown presences), but rather I am here.
One day, the thought entered my mind that perhaps this was the ghost of the female half of that couple—knocking, perhaps, out of confusion at the existence of this very door, which opens onto a section of the house that was added long after her death. I don't know where this thought came from, nor do I know why—of all of the people who lived and perhaps even died in this house—hers would be the spirit that is still hanging about. Nonetheless, there this thought was, and I've never been able to not think it every time I have heard that knock since. If I'm not being haunted by an actual ghost, I seem to be haunted by the thought that I might be.
November 1 wore on, one thing led to another, and we did not visit the Waldhurst cemetery in the end. That was okay, because the children were outside playing—not ghost hunting, as far as I know, just playing, as though everyone's interest in the supernatural had evaporated at midnight the night before.
* * *
I've never told the children about these possible visits from the other side. As a fan of getting them to bed as early as possible each night, the last thing I ever want to do is implant in their minds the idea that our house might actually be haunted.
I have also kept my counsel to myself regarding all of this ghost hunting. When Axl and Belle were little, I used to try to argue them out of their belief that ghosts and other creatures of the supernatural are real. Most of this effort was expended on Axl, who went through an early period of devotion to YouTube channels that featured videos with titles like "Top 10 Scariest Creatures Caught on Security Cameras" but could not chase certain residual images from his mind after the sun had gone down.
On one hand I was offended by the obvious and lazy fakery employed by these YouTubers and on the other I just wanted to get some sleep, so I did my best to explain how the epistemological framework of the modern age could help us evaluate the truth claims in these videos. To wit, if any of them were real, it would be all over not only National Geographic but also Twitter and Facebook.
Once the children started school and I took my first clear look at the forces of rationality and conformity arrayed against them, I regretted riding out under that kind of flag so early and rethought my stance on the possibility that the world might yet contain a few things outside of human comprehension. I want my children to acquire the mental equipment to spot bullshit artists, but that's different from wanting them to decide in advance that every ghost story is bullshit without at least considering the truths that these stories excel at conveying, if you look closely enough.
I'm sure my children still find me exasperatingly rational, but I'm trying to improve.
