SAVANNAH - At the Moon River brewery, built on the bones of an 1820 hotel, employees are afraid to go alone to the shadowy, vacant rooms upstairs. That's why Scott Flagg sets up there at midnight. <br>
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On the creaky floor, Flagg spreads out $20,000 worth of gadgets -- microphone, barometer, motion detector, video camera, digital VCR, thermal imager -- linked by a web of cables to a laptop. <br>
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With this high-tech mousetrap, Flagg tries to catch ghosts. He attempts to record paranormal proof via a gossamer glimpse, a disembodied voice, a plunge in temperature or a strange electromagnetic flux. <br>
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Flagg says, ``We're trying to determine how, if ghosts exist, they might influence the environment. It's a controversial thing, kind of a mismatched marriage between beliefs and a rational mind.'' <br>
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The 28-year-old Flagg is the resident technical whiz for the American Institute of Parapsychology, a Gainesville, Florida-based group that seeks to turn amateur ghost buffs into certified field investigators. <br>
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During a Savannah conference last weekend, AIP director Andrew Nichols held a workshop introducing eleven enthusiasts to the tools of the trade: ghost theories, technical equipment, codes of conduct and questionnaires to measure whether ghost witnesses have psychic potential. <br>
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Nichols has been pursuing ghosts for more than 25 years. His interest was piqued at age 12, he says, when the apparition of his 19-year-old sister appeared in his bedroom shortly after she died in a car crash. <br>
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So what are ghosts? Nichols says most likely, and contrary to popular belief, they aren't spirits of dead people. <br>
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Nichols suspects traumatic events such as death release some sort of psychic energy that imprints itself on physical objects such as walls or furniture. When people report seeing a ghost, they're seeing a replay of the imprint, like a natural hologram, rather than a disembodied conscience that's trying to interact.
