(Original headline: Raymond investigators take ghost of a chance)
RAYMOND — local paranormal investigators believe unexplained noises and strange phenomena that has been reported around town is the work of spectres, and are hoping to doucment their findings on film.
Longtime residents and friends Barb Edgar and Kathleen Chamberlain say that despite its relatively small size, the town is fertile ground for the study of paranormal activity. The two are in the process of compiling what they call “true ghost stories” for a Channel 22 documentary expected to air on Halloween.
“We’ve heard some rumors in town from people who think their houses are haunted,” said Chamberlain, a local businesswoman, last Thursday. “We’re believers (in ghosts) to begin with. We’re not gullible . . . but we know there are true stories out there.”
The pair said they came up with the idea to research and document local ghost stories on video while attending a Tai Chi class last autumn, and both readily admit they are not skeptics when it comes to believing in ghosts.
Was longtime Raymond Fire Chief Philip A. Fox, seen in inset photo, still serving his town in the afterlife?
Edgar, who is studying computer technology, traced her interest in the paranormal to a Scottish great-grandmother who passed down her stories of ghost sightings to her children. Chamberlain said she often feels the presence of those who have died, including her father, and added she once saw the ghost of a departed supervisor while working at a local manufacturing company.
“I have seen them, felt them, heard them,” she said. “There are a lot of houses here in town, and I don’t know if it has anything to do with old properties or simply people’s perceptions, but I believe (ghosts) are all around us.”
Chamberlain said that although no residents have come forward to tell their ghost stories yet, an interview she conducted with Fire Chief Kevin Pratt indicates that some may have believed the ghost of Philip Fox, the longest-serving Raymond fire chief, haunted the Old Fire Station in the town center. Fox, who a year after his 1969 retirement, served the town for nearly three decades and had once lived in a small apartment area above the old building.
Pratt downplayed talk of Fox’s “ghost” on Thursday, but admitted there were some unusual happenings in the Old Fire House from the time he joined the department in 1975 until 1990, when the department was moved to its current location by Exit 4.
“We’d have those electric garage doors open without reason, and they weren’t even remote control doors,” Pratt said. “We could never explain why it happened, but we used to joke that it was the ghost of Phil Fox.”
But Pratt seemed more serious when discussing a 1989 photograph taken by Raymond Fire Explorer Ryder Audette of a burning house. Pratt said the building, situated where the Raymond Animal Hospital now stands, was being used for a practice burn when the photo was taken. To some, a tongue of flame appears to show a man with his hand placed across his chest, and Pratt said the home’s owner had died of a heart attack in the residence the year before.
Pratt said the photograph, which hangs on the wall in his office, has not been retouched or digitally altered.
“That’s exactly the way it was developed,” he said. “It was photo number 13 on the roll, too.”
According to a Harris Poll in 2003, 51 percent of Americans said they believe in ghosts, and Chamberlain said many popular television shows such as “The X Files” are mainstreaming the belief. She envisions the documentary as employing a light-hearted approach, and stressed that she will not ridicule the beliefs of anyone who come forward with their stories or debunk beliefs in ghosts. She and Edgar will be putting out the call for local ghost stories until March 31, and plan to continue editing and information-gathering work though the summer.
See www.1truestory.com
