KERNERSVILLE-- Brett Clark played a video clip again and again to watch a white orb of light flick across the screen. He slowed it down to better see it move.

Though the circle looks nothing like a human, he believes it could be a ghost.

"I've always associated ghosts as figures," he said, a still shot of tiny ball of light still on the computer screen as he sat in his home in Winston-Salem. But he explained that his view of the paranormal changed as he began a series of documentaries called North Carolina Ghostlore.

"Some say these orbs are forms of energy - that spirits take these forms to travel," he said.

The ball of light he has on film could be the ghost of the Grove Park Inn, he said. That's where Clark and his crew filmed the first in the series. The half-hour documentary will air on Cable Access Television on Tuesday at 2 p.m., 5 p.m., 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.

Clark, who was born and raised in Kernersville, works at a tennis center by day and does freelance work in film production. He's a graduate of the N.C. School of the Arts Film School.

He explained that since he was a kid, he has been fascinated with ghosts, UFOs and the unexplained.

"I always wanted to go to a haunted place as a kid," he said. "I believe that there are ghosts. That there are energies left behind with unresolved business, as they say. That there can be a particular presence in an area that refuses to go away."

With that in mind, and with research of some of the area's ghost legends, he set out to produce the series.

His longtime friend Gary Sergio Anthony, also of Kernersville, is helping him with the production, though he said he's not so sure about the existence of ghosts.

He describes himself as a "friendly skeptic." He said he doesn't go on the attack, explaining away each phenomena or saying each orb captured on film is a bug, a speck of dust or refracted light.

The two ran into obstacles as they began the ghostlore series. Property owners chased them away from a house said to be haunted.

Clark called numerous psychics to see whether they investigated the presence of ghosts. Some said they did but didn't want a film crew to accompany them. To no avail, he tried to arrange meetings with several paranormal investigators, who use equipment to test for the presence of ghosts.

Finally, in June, he found a group willing to participate.

L.E.M.U.R. Paranormal Investigations based in Asheville is doing an ongoing investigation of the Grove Park Inn, a site some say is haunted by a woman called The Pink Lady.

According to legend, a lady dressed in a pink dress fell from the window of Room 545. Brian Irish of L.E.M.U.R. said that foggy shapes are sometimes seen lingering through the inn.

"Sometimes they have a pinkish tint and sometimes, they are shaped like a woman," he said.

Clark and his crew accompanied the group as they tested for signs of ghosts in August.

In the first documentary, they showed the equipment used - which ranges from infrared goggles to highly sensitive microphones and electromagnetic field readers. They follow the paranormal investigators down corridors.

They're just getting started with the second in the series, which will look at the Brown Mountain lights. That's where lights are seen to flicker mysteriously along a low-lying ridge.

"They look like a line of people walking across the mountainside," Clark said.

Last weekend, Clark set out to film them from an overlook on N.C. 181 north of Morganton.

"We actually were able to witness some strange lights," he said.

Although Clark craves actual footage of the paranormal, both he and Anthony say they're interested in explaining the history and the mystery of the state's ghosts.

Clark doesn't think they'll ever catch definitive proof of ghosts.

"In the digital age, it's hard to say if you'll ever find solid, solid proof. With the digital age, it's easy to fix things up," he said. "It's going to be hard to prove. ...We want to go to these place and see if this exists, if there is mystery behind it or if it's a hoax. It's also entertainment. It should make people say, 'Well, that was fun.' "

• Story originally published by:
The Winston-Salem Journal / NC | Amy Frazier - Oct 25.01

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