Put a like on the post if you understand the wheeze reference in the title. You are also free to comment “no,” and a headshake ‘no’ if you really understand it. If you don’t, check out Buzzfeed Unsolved with Ryan and Shane (they’re older now as the two have moved on to make their new channel, Watcher, which is still awesome and hilarious) and binge them. You won’t be disappointed! You have a complete believer (Ryan Bergara) and skeptic (Shane Madej) go on ghost hunting adventures together. It’s hilarious and interesting.

I’m on a ghost hunting team of my own, though it’s just me and John in our own small faction of HOT, Haunted Operations Team (of Oklahoma). We branched off the original team that was based in North Carolina. We met a small group of ghost hunters while living there and enjoyed our nightly haunted hunts, though it is eye-opening to see that real ghost hunting is not the exciting venture you see on TV. It’s with a sad heart i must report that many ghost hunts can be quite…uneventful. Boring even. You literally are sitting in a dark room with a recorder going and hoping you hear something go bump in the night.

Many times, nothing.

Unless you count that time we were once run off a place by a redneck neighbor who claimed to own the property (they did not) and that we were trespassing (we were not but you don’t want the cops to arrest you for ghost hunting of all things).

And then you have to go through the recordings, the footage, and you have to listen to it in real time, not sped up, in case you do catch something.

Now, I’m not saying we never caught anything. There was a very real, very firmly said “no” by a male voice in response to a question in a small historical, one-room schoolhouse we investigated on the fly. There was only one other man in the room at the time and he was the one who asked the question, but the “no” was so clear and there. (The question was, “Are you threatened by us being here?”) We were so excited!

Since moving to Oklahoma, John and I asked permission to continue using HOT as a team name and now consider ourselves the Oklahoma faction.

So far, we’ve investigated a mausoleum, a historical bed and breakfast where we spent our anniversary, an apartment where a facet kept turning itself on and cupboards were left open, as well as our own collected items that are said to be eerie and possibly haunted. And how much evidence of the spiritual world do we have?

Very, very little. Although we do have videos of our K-2 Meter going full red when asking questions at the bed and breakfast and to one very creepy little doll we have in a cabinet, I can’t say that the Discovery Channel is going to be reaching out to showcase us any time soon. That’s actually a good thing because as someone who does ghost hunting as a hobby, let me tell you: it’s not that exciting and three quarters of anything that happens on those shows have to be made up for the entertainment part of it. For instance, we have yet to have something thrown at us.

I did have a response to the shave and a haircut knock routine. Seriously! Two knocks sounded in a Masonic hotel when I explained the knock routine and how I wanted them to complete it and did the first five raps against a wall. The team leader was with me and heard it too!

I enjoy writing about the paranormal and would love to get into writing stories focused more on ghosts rather than the fantasy tropes I’ve been drudging myself through for the last ten years. Maybe a story about ghost hunters? Hmm. Or maybe just a snapshot of what a real investigation is like and the thrilling moment when something finally happens. What do you think?

Until then, whether ghosts are real or not will remain unsolved.

Knock knock!