Whether or not you choose to believe in them, ghost stories have always been with us. Paleolithic cave paintings from thousands of years ago depict ancient spirits hovering in an otherworldly realm. A few millennia ago, Homer imagined Odysseus on a journey to the land of the dead, while Shakespeare worked supernatural beings into everything from Hamlet to Macbeth. Movies, TV, and videogames have kept the concept of hauntings alive in the popular imagination, but not everyone thinks they belong there.
On Thursday, October 30 – aka Halloween Eve – the Long Island Paranormal Investigators will lead a ghost hunt at the Southampton Playhouse prior to a late-night screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. In anticipation of the event (which is free but requires pre-registration and begins at 8:30pm), I called up LIPI co-founder Michael Cardinuto to learn more about the history of his organization as well as how he feels about popular representations of ghosts in mainstream entertainment.
You started the Long Island Paranormal Investigators in 2003. When did you become a true believer?
I went in skeptical. The group started on a dare. We were talking about different kinds of urban legends on Long Island, and I dared two of my friends to go into Building 93 at King’s Park Psych Center. They were there for an hour and 45 minutes. Towards the end, they heard a really loud bang and ran out. That intrigued us, so we started doing some research. Our co-founder, Rob Levine, found that there was some equipment used for testing paranormal theories. So we bought some stuff to see if there’s any truth to these urban legends and we started investigating them. As we started investigating, we started capturing evidence we couldn’t explain. That’s how I started to believe there’s definitely something out there.
What made the search worthwhile? Was it a specific encounter that changed everything for you?
At first it was the adventure of not knowing, that anxious feeling of going to a new location and not knowing what was there. But then, back in 2006, we were at a site in Melville called Mount Misery Road. We had a large group and it was the first time we were in this site. I was the first guy in and I kept feeling like there was someone else with us. I look back and I saw what’s called a “shadow person.” It’s like a humanoid figure, it’s black and opaque. You can see it in the darkest of nights. I didn’t want to say anything, because I didn’t want to startle the team. We got to this little pathway that is perpendicular to the one we were on, and a voice came through the walkie talkies that said, “They’re here, let me out, I’m burning.” It lasted for like a minute and 15 seconds. Then it stopped. We were like, “Holy crap, what is that?” It was really cool.
How has your relationship to film and TV depictions of hauntings changed since you started doing this?
Unfortunately, I would say the majority is wrong. There are a couple good films out there. The Exorcism of Emily Rose really takes the cake in terms of depicting what a possession is like, but those cases are extremely rare. It doesn’t happen everyday. There’s also the first Paranormal Activity, where they set these cameras up in their house for hours and might get a door closing on its own after 10 hours. That’s the reality of the paranormal. Believe it or not, it’s very boring. A lot of times, things aren’t happening. We’ll do a house investigation and nothing happens for hours. That’s the difference between Hollywood and real life, but I get it, movies have to be faster than that.
One of the more common tropes in ghost movies is that a deceased person has unfinished business, like solving their own murder, that sort of thing. What sort of explanations have you come up with for the circumstances you’ve investigated?
I do believe that there’s something out there. Going into the field, I noticed that people were always like, “Ooh, it’s Halloween, let’s go to the cemetery because it’s creepy.” After 22 years of investigating cemeteries, I have to say, they’re the least haunted. When people pass away, if it’s a clean event, and they go wherever they want, why the hell are they going to come back and go to the cemetery? Go to a beach in Hawaii or something. But you do have situations where someone was murdered. Does that person want to come back for revenge? Hollywood would imagine the spirit coming out to kill that person. In reality, if we went to investigate a case like that, we might try to get evidence through our equipment like audio recorders with EVP. It takes time. If that spirit is trying to get their story across, they’re not going to get it across fast enough. They can get maybe a little frustrated or violent, maybe give us a scratch or throw something. It’s not them being evil, it’s frustration.
The most obvious point of comparison for what you do is Ghostbusters. They use specific equipment to record supernatural events, albeit in a playful way. How much of that parallels what you do?
For the most part, Ghostbusters was onto something. Dan Akroyd is a huge paranormal enthusiast who runs an organization around it. There is a lot of truth behind the equipment and stuff. It’s obviously very different, but the equipment is based on theory. Does a ghost give off electromagnetic fields? We don’t know, so let’s use an EFM meter to find out. In the movie, they capture ghosts with proton packs and zap things. I don’t think that’s possible at all. I’m very science-based. But we do what’s called a cleansing. There are different ways to do it. We burn sage. If it’s a religious ceremony, they might do some Catholic prayers or use frankincense and myrrh. In that situation, though, we’re not trapping something. We’re pushing something out.
How much do you feel that there is a religious context to all this?
We do a lot of house investigations and we have a religion department in our organization to see how each religion handles the paranormal. I was brought up Catholic, but if we investigate a house that’s Jewish, I can’t go in there and say Catholic prayers. It’s not going to work. You have to go with the person’s belief system. Demonology is predominantly more Catholic. Then you have djinn, which is more Islamic-based. The dybbuk comes out of Judaism. There’s the occult aspect of voodoo and hoodoo, which is more of a Haitian descent. I have seen situations where people aren’t super religious and things happen, so they ask me, “What religion should I follow?” I won’t tell them. I tell them to follow their own needs. They’ve done that, and activity lights up.
How do you feel about people that don’t buy into what you do, but think it’s fun? Full disclosure: I am not a true believer myself, but I can see how what you do deserves its place in the same way that any kind of spiritual or mystical convictions might in our society.
It’s one thing if you watch the TV shows and movies, hear about a real paranormal investigation, and want to go out. No problem. Everyone’s curious. What sucks is that a lot of people are out there trying to make a buck and they’ll do anything. But we’re trying to really educate people on the equipment and how it’s used. Some tours out there are just like, “let’s roam around, do a ouija board,” or whatever.
So let’s say you find a ghost. What happens next?
That’s really up to the location. It’s hard to say. You have to really get down to the narrative of what’s going on there. If we find something, is that person, that spirit, trapped? Maybe they don’t even know they’re dead. Once you kind of understand it, do you want to get rid of it? We could try to do a cleansing. Some places just want to know it’s there and then they’ll do ghost tours. We’ve been investigating the Rogers Mansion starting in 2018. We were bringing people into this house every month doing events and I started to wonder if any ghosts or spirits were bothered by it. I asked this question: “Is it OK if we come here?” I got a whispered voice that said “Yes.”
This interview has been condensed and lightly edited. Subscribe to the Playhouse Post here and our weekly podcast Movie People here.