The TAPS team, from left to right, tech manager Steve Gonsalves, co-founder Jason Hawes, cofounder Grant Wilson and investigator Dave Tango pose with Tech. Sgt. Brad Gardner at Building 70 in Area C of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
Paranormal team enjoyed stay at base Ghost Hunters investigate Wright-Patt
Jason Hawes didn't think there was a ghost of a chance that he and Grant Wilson would be among the most recognizable faces in the paranormal world. But four seasons after their series, Ghost Hunters, debuted on the Sci Fi Channel, the pair is a definite hit - and that's nothing to say "boo" about.
"It's funny because Grant and I, you know, we're plumbers out of Rhode Island," Hawes said during a recent telephone conference call interview with media discussing the paranormal investigation at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base by The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), the group headed by Hawes and Wilson. "We didn't think anybody wanted to watch anything we did.
"We expected that we would do 10 episodes and it would be canceled. We'd just go on with our normal lives. We never even fathomed we'd be four seasons in and one of the top-rated reality shows on cable."
TAPS has conducted investigations throughout the U. S., from the O. K. Corral to the Mansfield Reformatory, and even went to England to investigate sites there. The team's method is to not go into a location to prove it is haunted, but to debunk the claims by finding causes for the phenomena experienced by those who requested the investigation.
"We're coming in - not trying to validate, but trying to disprove," Hawes said. "We're trying to figure out what's really going on.
"We are firm believers of the paranormal, but we believe over 80 percent of all claims can be disproved."
Hawes continued. "Now with that known, when we come into a place, we're coming in with everything from Zero Lux Cameras that can see in total darkness to Thermal Imaging Cameras which can see temperature fluctuations... you know, audio - wireless audio systems, just the whole gambit of equipment and electromagnetic field detectors. There's everything."
The WPAFB investigation took place at buildings 70 and 219 as well as the oldest building on the base, Arnold House. Wilson said the tools of this investigation even included a special microphone.
"We brought in things like a Faraday cage, which is a copper cage that we could put our microphones in," he said. "This would eliminate any outside signal because we're on a military base. So a lot of radio chatter and things like that - we don't want that to be misinterpreted as an EVP (Electronic Voice Phenomena) or a disembodied voice."
The investigation on a working military base was different, according to the Ghost Hunters.
"It's a military installation, so it needs to be guarded, needs to be protected," Hawes said of his experience at Wright-Patt. "We had access to the areas that we were going to investigate, you know.
"But, you know, of course they have to keep everything else tight and we respect that - and honored that with them. We never really asked to go anywhere but the places that we were there to investigate."
"You know," Wilson added, "We heard that the Air Force called and then that just blew us away because - and the reason for that is because a few years ago, the field was looked at in such a way that the Air Force wouldn't even consider calling someone in.
"And now here they are going to bat and getting Pentagon clearance," Wilson continued. "And when we heard that, I mean, that just blew my mind that they went to the Pentagon and they said okay. I mean, it just blows my mind."
The investigation centered around those three buildings where reports of supernatural occurrences had been reported. In the Arnold House, workers report children laughing and footsteps when the building is closed down; at Building 70, the reports seem to go back to the building's former life as a warehouse - it's said that the sound of boxes being slid across the floor can be heard; at Building 219, which used to be a medical facility, a ghost of a boy has been spotted.
"The claims that they're making are very typical of genuine claims," Wilson said of stories from the base. "I mean, they still aren't sure and they're still king of trying to figure - they're open-minded to an alternate explanation, which shows that it's genuine.
"(They say) You know, I heard this voice. I know I've heard this voice. I'm not crazy, I mean, they're very- and they're not claims that are 'out there'. They are things that we've seen regularly.
"And so, you know, it's what people can believe in the paranormal or not, but there are things going on here that they don't understand. And they may have a normal reason for it or not. It could be paranormal."
Hawes and Wilson both said they couldn't reveal anything they experienced at Wright-Patt - we'll have to wait for the episode to air some time in late March or early April. But they did say it was a productive investigation.
"It was a great investigation," Hawes said. "Probably one of our best."
"It's been a good case and I think that translates to a good show," Wilson added.
Hawes and Wilson said they always experience things while in the midst of an investigation, but a bomb threat that was reported to the base during the team's stay wasn't paranormal.
"I don't think any ghost called in a bomb threat," Hawes laughed. "That's for sure."
Wilson added that they, like other base personnel, were taken off the base at the time of the threat.
"We were riding with a Major at the time," he said. "And he's like 'Sorry, guys. There's nothing I can do.' They take it very seriously."
The TAPS crew may not be done in Southwestern Ohio, either.
Hawes said they may be coming back to investigate "a couple of residential cases and another building" somewhere between Dayton and Cincinnati. "I really can't say exactly where, though."
