G-g-g-ghosts!
http://www.fresnobee.com/221/story/36286.html

G-g-g-ghosts!
Something paranormal this way comes in Jackie Meador's class.
By Felicia Cousart Matlosz / The Fresno Bee


It's a frigid winter night -- almost too cold to be out looking for
ghosts. A full moon looms overhead as teacher Jackie Meador and her
paranormal class investigate a small hotel nestled in the eastern Madera
County foothills.At nearly 10:30 p.m., they split into small groups of
five or so. One of the groups ventures outside to the front of this
well-lit rustic lodge, the Sierra Sky Ranch Resort. Bundled in heavy
jackets and sweaters to brace against 36-degree weather, they start
working with their equipment, such as digital cameras and voice
recorders."You guys get anything cool yet?" asks Terry Campbell, a
security consultant and student in Meador's Fresno Adult School course,
"Paranormal Studies 101, Investigating Ghosts Hauntings."It's one of the
school's most popular community courses, an indicator of people's
ongoing fascination with those things that just can't be rationalized.

It's why films such as "The Sixth Sense," "Ghost" and "The Others" draw
big audiences.Campbell's group keeps chitchat to a minimum. They know,
because it's so cold, not to mistake foggy breath for anything else on
photos. And they snap them in quick succession, to show what a scene
looked like in just a few seconds, should they catch an unexplainable
image.Which is what happens to Campbell in front of the pear tree.He
says he thinks he has something. Classmates peer over his shoulder.
There, on his camera's screen, is one photo of the pear tree, followed
immediately by another of the tree -- this time with strands of white
mist at the top of the frame.The shot is mysterious. And Campbell is
excited."It's awesome," he says. "It's kind of like Christmas. ...

You open up the presents and see what you got."Jackie Meador is a
petite, energetic grandmother who says she's "pushing 60." A Fresno
County employee, she reminds you of actress Kathy Bates with her
friendly, down-to-earth, authoritative manner. She and husband Mark
"Oly" Meador lived in other parts of the state before coming to Fresno
in 1981.At age 10, she watched ghost movies on Saturday afternoon
television: "I was always fascinated. Who are they? Where are they
coming from?"But it wasn't until seven years ago that her interest in
the paranormal surged. She searched for formal courses but spotted few.

She finally found a group in the Bay Area and learned from them,
traveling to states such as Arizona, Alabama, and Utah.In 2001, she and
Oly founded Central California Paranormal Investigators
(www.ccpifresno.net). Meador has conducted about 75 investigations --
all for free in the name of research -- at places such as private homes,
hotels and cemeteries.One day, a notice in a Fresno Adult School catalog
caught her eye: Anyone with a course idea should call. She wondered
whether people would take a paranormal class."Paranormal goes on all
around us, and people want to know what's happening. They want to know
if they're going crazy, if what they're really seeing is something or if
it's just their imagination," Meador says. "They're asking serious
questions, and they want serious answers. And that's why I do what I
do."She taught her first course last spring, with a limit of 20
students.

Plenty of others wanted in -- and still do.Sherry McClelland, a Fresno
Adult School vice principal, says the school sometimes takes it cue from
popular subjects sparked by TV shows or other trends. She says Meador's
course is one of the favorites on a schedule that lists 250 to 300
community classes at a time.But why so much interest?"It's the mystery,
the wonder, the idea of the paranormal," McClelland says. "I think
there's an allure. And I think people have their own personal
reasons."Campbell is one of those people, and for good reason -- it's
what he experienced as an 11-year-old boy growing up in Fresno.One
night, he had just lain down in bed and happened to look at the hallway.
He saw a small figure wrapped in a blanket walk past his door. Must be
Mom heading for her bedroom.

He waited for her lights to turn on. They didn't. Confused, he walked
down the hallway the other way. Mom still was watching television."When
something like that happens, it's not so much a scream-in-terror thing,"
says Campbell, now 37. "It's kind of surreal, like 'OK, that just
happened.' "A few weeks later, Campbell says, he was eating a sandwich
at the kitchen counter ... when the toaster oven did something."The door
opened slowly, as if you had something hot [inside it] and were looking
inside," Campbell recalls. "Then it just deliberately shut itself. I'll
never forget it."When a friend told him about Meador's class, Campbell
knew he had to take it. And he's enjoying himself.The March night trek
is one reason why.

The unexplained will surface more than once. It's not just the white
wisps captured by Campbell's camera. For example, it's the nauseous
feeling some will feel when they come to the bottom of a certain flight
of stairs, or batteries drained of power faster than usual. Meador says
that spirits, in trying to manifest themselves, draw energy off other
sources.Campbell understands there are skeptics about the
paranormal."Everybody is entitled to their own opinion," he says. "My
opinion is that there's something out there. I can't quite explain it,
but there's definitely something more to this."Meador says it's an
investigator's job to collect evidence, analyze it and determine whether
a site is paranormal.

And please, don't call them "ghost busters" or similar terms. She says,
with one exception, that people don't want to get rid of their
ghosts.Spirits hang around for a variety of reasons. For example, they
don't know they're dead, or they believe they were wronged in death and
have unresolved business.Meador uses seven criteria in her
investigations: photographic evidence, tape recordings, temperature
fluctuations, odors, electromagnetic field disruptions, physical contact
and movement of inanimate objects.She says she's only been in six sites
where they found nothing. That's far from the case at Sierra Sky Ranch:
"I can probably safely say this is probably the only place that I would
say is haunted."Paranormal activity may involve a single criterion. To
be considered haunted, Meador says a site needs to meet at least five --
Sierra Sky Ranch meets six, all except electromagnetic field
disruptions.The resort dates back to the late 1800s, when it was a
cattle ranch. It's also been a tuberculosis convalescent site and,
during World War II, a rest center for servicemen. It's since operated
as a guest ranch or lodge, changing ownership from time to time.Ted
Roache, one of the resort's three current co-owners, says the spirits
are not mean-spirited; they're viewed as protectors and caretakers.
Meador says her group has confirmed the presence of four.

"Everything they do is very playful," Roache says.He delights in his
patrons' stories. Like when customers say they've enjoyed their stay but
the people upstairs were loud -- Roache tells them there is no room
overhead. Or they feel something touched them, or they saw a woman
waving from a corner -- a woman who isn't really there.And lately,
Roache says, water has been turning itself on in the bathrooms."Most
people have fun with it. They're either nonbelievers or extremely
curious," he says. "We've had many nonbelievers leaving
believing."Shamalah-Allah, 36, is a believer.She's also a medium who
does personal readings for people. She took Meador's class to broaden
her knowledge and education.At Sierra Sky Ranch, she experiences a
couple of things that can't be explained. One involves her compass. The
thinking is that if a compass comes in contact with paranormal matter,
it will fluctuate from north.In Shamalah-Allah's case, her compass froze
as she stood at the bottom of a porch.

When she walked away, it was fine. Another classmate later took it and
walked to the top of the porch. "That's when it was jiggling in a
northeast direction for a second and then it jumped down to a south
direction and it stuck there," Shamalah-Allah says, before the woman
started moving around again.Or there's what happens to Michele Renna.
She's 38 and a schoolteacher: "I've always been interested in scary
things and ghosts and haunted houses and Halloween."She's one of the
students who feels nauseous at the bottom of some stairs -- a feeling
she experienced at a reportedly paranormal site in another community. On
this night, she's also with Campbell when he clicks that photo of the
white mist. What will she do with the skills she's learning?"I don't
know.

I'm mainly doing it just for fun and entertainment," Renna says.
"Honestly, I've been interested in this kind of thing, but I wasn't sure
if I really believed in ghosts or not."After tonight?"I don't know. I'm
beginning to wonder if there really is some type of energy or spirits or
something," she says. "Being there with Terry while he took a picture,
it was a little bit more convincing."

The reporter can be reached at fmatlosz@fresnobee.com or (559) 441-6428.