Things That Go Bump In An Otesaga Night

1-15-10

Sometimes it turns out to be a banging pipe, or old floorboards opening an off-center door.
But some things can’t be explained easily.  Some can’t be explained at all, according to ghost-hunters from TAPS, the Atlantic Paranormal Society, who plumbed the mysteries of Cooperstown in a three-day conference Friday-Sunday, Jan. 8-10, at The Otesaga and The Farmers’ Museum.
Present were TAPS’ stalwarts Jason Hawes, Grant Wilson, Britt Griffith, Chip Coffey, Amy Bruni and Rob Jones from the SyFy Network’s “Ghost Busters.”  The next season starts Feb. 24.
The conference was a brainchild of Jim Johnson of Fly Creek, the county representative who is also publisher of TAPS Paranormal, the organization’s magazine.
“I wanted to share our area’s great history and the historic locations,” Jim explained.  “I also wanted to help increase our tourism,  and I saw a chance to do this with the ‘Ghosts of Cooperstown’ event.”
The Otesaga’s Bob Faller and Farmers’ Museum’s Garet Livermore co-organized with Johnson. The event attracted 120 people at the slowest time of the tourism year.
In an interview, Grant Wilson said what viewers see on the TV show is just preliminary investigations, a small part of what The Ghost-Busters do.
Yes, it takes multiple shooting to capture the sounds on each episode, but the team doesn’t just say, “OK, you have a ghost,” and depart.
There’s followup and support, which can take weeks or months.
Jason Hawes, one of the team’s leaders, said he would prefer that more of the moments of debunking would appear on the show.
The TAPS approach to ghost hunting is skeptical: The team doesn’t try to prove a place is haunted, just to figure out what is really causing a disturbance.
Saturday featured a full day of lectures, starting with the history of the Ouija Board by  Bob Murch. Nick Redfern from the Centre for Fortean Zoology, which pursues things like Nessie and Big Foot, discussed monster hunting.  Adam Blai discussed demonology from the Roman Catholic perspective. 
At The Farmers’ Museum that evening, Ted Stuart reported noises in the blacksmith shop, like chains being dragged across the second floor.
Participants took digital pictures in hopes of catching a ghost.  And an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) session was conducted.  No one got to bed before 1 a.m.
 Sunday started with a gallery reading by Chip Coffey.  Rob Jones discussed the paranormal.  Scotty Roberts lectured on the Nephilim, beings mentioned in the Bible purported to be offspring of fallen angels.
To learn more about TAPS, visit  www.theatlanticparanormalsociety.com