By Jackie Adams / Asst. Features Editor
( California Paranormal Private Investigations)
By Jackie Adams / Asst. Features Editor
The parking lot is empty, the box office boarded up.
Old movie posters still hang in the windows.
What used to be a date-night destination is now the site of a paranormal investigation.
Inside, three members from California Paranormal Private Investigators, or CalPara for short, sit on stools where popcorn was once sold, sipping coffee and discussing the details of their current investigation.
Peaches Veatch, the lead investigator, along with Kd Foreman and Frances Tabor, have decided to take it into their own hands to find out why the former tenants abandoned the theater so suddenly.
“They just left one day, popcorn still in the poppers, hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment left behind,” Tabor said.
The theater owners denied any paranormal events took place, but CalPara was suspicious and decided to check it out.
This is just one of many sites in Southern California that CalPara has investigated during the three years it’s been together.
Donning black shorts and polo shirts, credentials hanging from lanyards, the 20 members of CalPara travel all over.
They respond to calls of strange feelings, footsteps in the night, windows closing on their own and other seemingly unexplainable happenings.
Distraught residents and business owners frequently call the group as a last resort.
CalPara comes into their homes or stores, gently bringing in their equipment and offering a copy of all their findings to the owner.
Sometimes the news is distressing, but often times people are relieved and comforted to find out they have a family member watching over them.
During a recent investigation Calpara was called in because a little girl kept telling her mom she saw an astronaut in her room.
Calpara determined it to be her grandpa, deceased for over 20 years. He was horrified to find out he had been scaring his granddaughter.
Most of the members of CalPara have full time day jobs, and consider the investigations a second (unpaid) job more than just a hobby. So why do they do it?
“We want to get answers, while also helping people,” Veatch said.
“We want to understand what happens to us after we leave here. We’re not thrill seeking; we’re in it for the scientific value.”
Members scoff at the depictions of ghost hunting glamorized on television.
“If you’re experiencing unexplained events, it’s probably not a demon in your house, it’s probably grandma trying to get your attention,” Foreman said.
Foreman stops, feeling someone watching her.
“Suddenly your brain tells you you’re being watched, and it’s a woman, and she’s totally angry.”
She senses the spirit of an older woman pacing in the shadows of the hallway, apparently upset by their conversation.
Foreman flaps her hands nervously, “A lot of times they get upset when we use the word ‘dead,’ some don’t know that they have died,” she said.
The other women don’t seem fazed, and Veatch starts a video showing the proof they have collected from the theater.
Filmed in night vision, it shows two orbs coming from separate doors down the hallway, meeting in the middle, and then floating off-screen together.
Their documentation is vast. From electromagnetic field recordings (voices that apparently don’t have a human source) to video recordings and pictures of orbs.
There’s even a picture of a floating face. So they keep searching, hoping one day to come across the holy grail of ghost hunting, a full body apparition.
”You must have an open mind, and be open to all of your senses,” Tabor said.
“You have to understand that the hair standing up on the back of your neck means something.”
So, if you feel your hair standing up, watch your back.
