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From The Observer News
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In fact, before they formed Apollo Paranormal Investigators about a year ago, both Lisa and Cliff Kennedy were skeptics. They didn’t believe in ghosts, or think much about paranormal activity. By day, they own and operate Alley Cat Pest Control services. But when their usual workday is done, they’ve become much-called-on experts in paranormal investigations when strange events occur. “I’ve always gotten strong feelings about things,” Lisa said. “I used to call it intuition. Sometimes though, they (the feelings) can be very strong. I never associated them with anything paranormal though.” The first time her husband noticed his wife’s unusual “vibes” was when the couple was exploring Ft. DeSoto.
This fort is located on a beach that was named America’s Top Beach by both TripAdvisor (a service that claims to do unbiased research on vacation spots) and Dr. Stephen Leatherman, who heads the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University in Miami. The fort, in Pinellas County, has a long history dating from the landing of the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in the mid-1500s. Shortly before the beginning of the Civil War (in the mid-1800s) it was fortified and made into an Army post and served as a major blockade for Union troops to cut off ammunition and supplies meant for the Confederacy. Then, in May 1989, it became a possible location for the murders of three vacationing Ohio women — Joan Rogers and her daughters, Michelle, 17 and Christie 14 — who were killed by confessed-assailant Oba Chandler. Naturally, legends abound about the fort. But that wasn’t why Cliff and Lisa went to the fort the first time. They just went to enjoy the boat trip and beach scenery.
“Lisa had a real bad reaction to one certain room. She just couldn’t stay in it,” said her husband Cliff. “I’d never seen her that way before. She said she just had to get out.”
Lisa described an eerie feeling that quickly turned to anxiety and panic, but went away as soon as she left the room. The couple didn’t talk much about the incident afterwards. Instead, whenever they watched different television shows that referred to supernatural things, they would always talk about how people could “fake it.” Still, in the back of the native Floridian’s mind, Cliff remembered stories his father had told him about an old house in Alabama where he (his father) had lived in his youth. “He told us that the house had a long history of being haunted, and that he had heard strange things there himself. A well-known politician even called in professors from the University of Alabama after hearing sounds like a man walking with a cane and looking up the house’s history to find that someone of that description had died there,” Cliff said. Lisa had also begun to remember some of the “vibes” she had gotten as a child. “My niece was the same way. Sometimes we would just tune into something.” The feeling she had gotten at Ft. DeSoto began to intrigue Cliff, whose brother is an electrical engineer, and he started studying electronic voice recorders and electromagnetic fields. “There’s a whole science to this,” Cliff explained. By then they had met Angelo Sarouko, who also was developing an interest in the paranormal, and the three of them decided to go to Ft. DeSoto and set up electronic equipment in the room where Lisa had gotten her strange feeling. They arrived at 11:30 at night. The fort was closed to the public but was not locked. First they checked everything out to be certain no one was there and the room made no unusual sounds. Then they set up a digital voice recorder and walked around inside, asking certain questions that might pertain to a soldier or battle. After each question they would give time for a response. “Now you’ve got to understand the way this works is that sometimes, when we’re at a location, we don’t hear any response, but later when we play it back we do. And then we can see the sound waves increase at certain points (when the voice is heard) on the computer screen. Other times one of us hears something but the others don’t — or one of us picks up something on the recorder but not the others. We’ve even had an experience where we all hear a distinct voice, or word, but it doesn’t come through on the equipment.” They do have some responses from that night at the fort. The sessions they hold are free and are called EVPs, or electronic voice phenomenon recordings. Word spread by mouth and they began picking up others who were also interested and wanted to join their team. Now, besides the original three, they also have Nathan Aman; Nick Variz; Constance Ponce; and Ed Connoly. They also began getting calls to investigate some very famous locales including Tampa’s Cuban Club, Tampa’s Italian Club, the famous John and Mabel Ringling (house) Museum in Sarasota and the Fantasy of Flight aircraft museum in Polk City where old planes are restored and shown, and many times, even flown. Fantasy of Flight owner Kermit Weeks reported some of his guests had told him about “tour guides in period clothing” on one of the planes, yet there were no such people on his payroll. The couple demonstrated the EVP recordings and some of their high-tech equipment for me, beginning with the Ft. DeSoto investigation. There are words that can be understood on their tapes and they are spoken at the exact times the waves increase on the screen. Photographs were taken as well at the Ringling investigation and in one, a shadow in the shape of a person appears by a brightly-painted column. Occasionally the team works with Haunted South Paranormal Research based in Tampa. “We exchange material, and go over our findings,” Lisa said. “We’re not in competition.” Apollo Paranormal Investigators is not a business and they have spent too many thousands of dollars on hi-tech equipment to call it a hobby. It has recently been classified a nonprofit organization. “We’re being asked to do investigations at some very famous places,” Cliff said. Sometimes, if their team finds enough evidence for a second or third investigation, they call Haunted South to accompany them on a return trip. Their most recent EVP was held at a former American Indian ranch in southeastern Hillsborough County. There were findings that will lead the team to do more research and investigations there. There is a theory that when a spirit is trying to manifest itself, it will create an electromagnetic field so the team has electronic gauges that detect the presence of electromagnetic fields before any investigation begins. “Some people get sick in areas that have high EMF, like from overhead power lines, while it doesn’t affect others,” Lisa said. “We rule out every possible reason for an occurrence before starting an investigation.” To find out more or to request the services of API, visit its Web site at www.apolloparanormal.com; email apolloparanormal@verizon.net or call (813) 927-0651. © Copyright 2008 by The Observer News Publications and M&M Printing |
