Finding the normal in the paranormal

Jammie Spradlin, founder of Virginia Appalachian Mountain Paranormal Investigations, isn’t in the ghost busting business. He says he’s looking to give reality to eerie situations.

Spradlin and his team have done almost 60 investigations throughout the area, distinguishing between the paranormal and the normal.

“The goal would be to help people, be it let them know it’s something paranormal going on in their house or their business, or if it’s not,” Spradlin says.

VAMP is usually called out to a building because the owners are unsure about what is going on, whether they hear footsteps, voices or see something out of the corner of their eye.

Spradlin said, “They’re not jumping out saying. ‘We definitely have a ghost.’”

Many times, he says a simple change can fix the situation.

“We end up finding the reasons why the things are happening that aren’t paranormal. You change this or you unplug that and switch it over here. It makes it go away for (the owners) and usually they’re grateful for it.”

After someone contacts VAMP Investigations with a problem, the team spends one night investigating at the house or business, armed with cameras, voice recorders and night vision video cameras, all free of charge. Spradlin says the team also uses EMF detectors.

“EMF is electro magnetic field,” he says. “It picks up any kind of change in the electro magnetic energy in the air coming from appliances or anything electrical. Supposedly spirit activity changes (the level of electro magnetic energy).”

After the initial investigation, Spradlin says he then spends a week or more researching and backing up VAMP’s claims. Yet, there are just some things that cannot be explained. VAMP recently investigated a property on Campbell Avenue in Roanoke. After explaining aloud that if the presence would get closer to the EMF detector so it could acknowledge the presence’s existence.

“I’d ask for (the paranormal activity) to get as close to the EMF detector as possible to make the number keep going up, and it started doing that.”

Spradlin said the EMF detector’s gauge shouldn’t have been increasing.

“(The EMF detector’s) not being moved, it’s not handled, so it shouldn’t even be bouncing from movement, and yet it would fluctuate with questions.”

The VAMP team later checked the floorboards and the surrounding area for electro magnetic energy, and found nothing.

“It’s something that I can’t explain,” Spradlin says.

And that is tough to tell the owners of the building.

“I had to explain to the clients when they got there, ‘I’m not telling you, you have paranormal activity. I’m not telling you there’s a ghost in your house,” Spradlin said. “I’m just saying that this is anomaly that we found that is very strange.”

In that Campbell Avenue situation, Spradlin says there was nothing concrete to back up suspicions, besides the fluctuating EMF levels.

“I definitely want to take the scientific approach and not just jump out and say I heard something over here, so it’s definitely a ghost; I don’t want to be that type of person.”

Spradlin and his brother-in-law did have a skin-crawling experience at a tunnel in Lexington. Usually Spradlin says the investigators ask questions aloud, and listen to the recordings later to hear the answers.

“Most of it seemed to be from a female or a young female,” Spradlin said. “We’d ask a question and get an immediate answer right back. And this place is in the middle of nowhere, so it’s not like somebody’s hiding out in the woods waiting.”

Spradlin says there is usually an increase in paranormal activity this time of year, but not because of Halloween.

“A main theory that most investigators have is the build up of electro magnetic energy helps make things more prevalent,” he says. “And the greater time of year for electro magnetic energy to be up is between September and March.”

Spradlin says with the weather cooling off, with floorboards adjusting for temperature and humidity, people begin hearing footsteps. Though in a lot of situations, he says people’s perception of the paranormal has been formed by scary movies. In reality, Spradlin says it’s more like hearing voices with no body to go along with it.

“A lot of people think, from movies, TV shows - and you have that little creepy music playing in the background, it kind of makes you get ready for the jump scene,” Spradlin said. “It’s not really like that.”