Featured Photo by Linz Chadwick
Story by Marshal Clemmer
That eerie feeling of not being alone. Noises that go bump in the middle of the night. Common household items go missing and then appear in the strangest of places. Touching by invisible hands. Phantom smells. Dark places. Cobwebs. Dark history. Unexplainable ghost sightings. Recently deceased saying that their favorite band is Pantera?
Paraghouls — a local paranormal team consisting of Linz Chadwick and Jordan Hendricks — has seen and heard it all while hunting for ghosts.
Paraghouls go to places that most people would think twice about. They have hunted in both local and famous historic locations. The pair has searched for spirits close to home at Sugaree’s Boutique on Murfreesboro’s public square, Cannonsburgh Pioneer Villiage, and the Slaughter Pen at Stones River Battlefield. However, they have also traveled to places such as Rockville, Indiana, and Portland, Tennessee, for more.
At these locations, Chadwick and Hendricks try to communicate with the spirits of the dead using some tools of the trade: a REM pod that detects movement using an electromagnetic field, a spirit box that sweeps radio stations to help the dead communicate, their cell phones for audio and visual recording and even an ordinary cat toy of light up balls that activate when disturbed.
For unbiased evidence gathering, they use the Estes Method. One person, called “the vessel,” wears and blindfold and puts on noise-canceling headphones that are connected to a spirit box. The others ask the ghost questions. The ghost then uses the vessel to respond to the questions. If done correctly, the vessel has no idea what is being asked.
“Sometimes they say stuff that has zero relevance to anything going on,” Chadwick said. “But if you ask, ‘How old are you?’ to someone who can’t hear you, and they say ’43,’ okay, that’s probably something that goes with it.”
Paraghouls recently went to the Indian State Sanatorium. The sanatorium started as a hospital for tuberculosis patients in 1908 and later became a nursing home and private mental institution until 2011. Chadwick and Hendricks’s ghost-hunting evidence includes ghosts physically touching them on the sides of their hips in the admin building, an apparition of a head peeking around a door frame, and an electronic voice phenomenon captured on Chadwick’s phone.
“I was doing a walkthrough at Indiana. As I was filming, I said, ‘The only thing people are gonna hear are my squeaky shoes.’ Then later during the playback I hear a woman say ‘I can hear you.’ Without telling Jordan what it said, she later confirmed what the voice said,” Chadwick said.
Paraghouls aren’t currently accepting new members but plan on possibly doing local paranormal investigation tours. Where ticket holders can go hunt ghosts with the aid of Chadwick and Hendricks, using Paraghouls’ equipment.
More information about Paraghouls and their spirited adventures can be found on Instagram.
To contact Lifestyles Editor Destiny Mizell, email [email protected]. For more news, visit www.mtsusidelines.com, or follow us on Facebook at MTSU Sidelines or on X at @MTSUSidelines.
