By Laura Drinan
Hometown Weekly Reporter
The Westwood Library has always served as resource to those seeking knowledge, including information about ghost hunting. While books about the paranormal have proved to be popular ones at the library, sometimes our questions about the supernatural are better suited for the professionals, like Rachel Hoffman and Matt Warner of Paranormal Xpeditions.
The paranormal-investigating duo, who have been featured with their team on the Travel Channel and Bio Channel, visited the Westwood Library for a lecture on their experiences with the unearthly and the equipment they use on the job, along with a few haunted objects on display.
Rachel and Matt presented a variety of tools they frequently use during their investigations, discussing their use of the Mel Meter, which reads temperatures, a laser grid, which can be used to see apparitions passing by, and the Ovilus, a tool used to communicate with the dead through an electromagnetic field meter.
The team uses many high-tech tools to gather evidence of spirits, including a thermal camera, which Rachel once used to photograph a full-bodied apparition in Middleboro, Massachusetts.
Participants at the lecture had the opportunity to handle the Mel Meter and Ovilus, the latter device uttering words as it was passed from person to person.
While it sputtered nonsense to some, others found meaning in the Ovilus’s messages as it said names of deceased family members. Some of the messages were certainly ominous, such as when it hissed “Do Run” to the library’s Head of Adult Services, Molly Riportella.
Rachel and Matt also discussed the history behind some of their haunted objects, including a doll with real human hair from the 1800s, a Ouija board, and a ball and chain, which were found with a severed ankle in Saratoga County, New York.
Although the two could not unequivocally prove the existence of ghosts to the audience, both the believers and skeptics in the audience enjoyed hearing Rachel and Matt’s opinions on ghosts and the afterlife.
“Everybody has their own personal set of beliefs, but me personally, I believe that we all turn into ghosts,” said Rachel.
“We survive death. We survive the death of our bodies into the next phase of our lives. Just because we can’t clinically prove that ghosts exist by pinprick or thumbprint or hair, doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.”
Despite having accumulated a wealth of evidence in favor of ghosts’ existence, many are still not on board with the idea that we exist alongside spirits.
“The skeptics are what keep us doing what we do,” said Matt. “You can’t try and discredit something you can’t prove either way. You have to have an open mind.”
“We love to prove people wrong,” added Rachel, laughing lightly. “But all it takes is a personal experience to turn someone’s perspective on the paranormal around.”
Members of the Westwood community who find themselves doubting the existence of ghosts might want to look at the evidence for themselves and join in on Paranormal Xpeditions’ next lecture at the library later this year.
