Gregory Jones

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Ghost Hunters Explore Mysteries by Crystal Bonvillian............... Shawn Sellers’ left leg starts to shake with excitement as he talks about his work. By the time he gets to details of some of the harrowing experiences he’s had, his foot’s steadily tapping on the hardwood floor underneath. The Montgomery, Alabama resident and his cousin, Greg Jones of Millbrook, are directors of Southern Paranormal Investigation and Research. The men, who oversee a group of about a dozen investigators, are tri-county ghost busters. The group is hosting a meet-and-greet event from 6 to 8 p.m. Saturday at Nellie Cameron’s Coffee House and Fine Gifts in Old Alabama Town. They will answer questions about their work and, they hope, find a few new members. Southern Paranormal, formed in August, is made up of people from very different walks of life. Jones is the general manager of a Birmingham car dealership. Sellers is an insurance adjuster. There is a nurse, an office manager, a pawnbroker. What each member of the group shares is a passion for exploring the unexplained. For Sellers and Jones, their interest began early, as the grandchildren of a woman they describe as “psychic sensitive.”“I was raised by my grandmother, so it was always around me,” Sellers said. “I was always taught to believe in it.” “I was shown that it is true,” agreed Jones, who said his grandmother’s psychic abilities were passed down to him. The cousins said they’ve been doing investigations together since they were children, but only recently decided to officially form a group dedicated to solving the mysteries of the afterlife. Their Southern Paranormal Investigation Team, or SPIT, is composed of several like-minded friends, people who became interested after learning what the investigations are all about. “We decided it was time to do something with what we’ve got,” Jones said. “I feel like God has blessed us with a gift.” Sellers said all of the members of the team have a strong belief in God, which he said is integral to investigating both good and bad spirits. The investigations are not for the faint of heart, he said, and have scared away some would-be investigators. “People who do it as amateurs, be careful what you get yourself into,” Jones said. “Once you get (a spirit), you’ve got to know what to do with it.” Sellers said the group says “protection prayers” before going into a supposedly haunted location. They also pray before leaving to keep bad spirits from hitchhiking home with them. When investigating a location, the SPIT members will go in and clear a location of any living people so that normal noise won’t be picked up by the team’s recording equipment. Using audio and video recorders, 35mm cameras, heat-sensitive night vision cameras, temperature gauges and electromagnetic field detectors, the group goes in and tries to determine what — if anything — is in the building. The investigations are not always successful. “You’re not going to pick up on something every time you go into a place,” Jones said. When spirits do show up, they sometimes appear as noises or shadows on the equipment, the cousins said. Other times, the spirits are visible to the naked eye. None of the investigators share their experiences with one another until after the investigation, so they don’t influence each other. They also know nothing of the location’s history until their work is completed. “We go in blind,” Jones said. “That way, if it matches what we find out later, it makes our investigation that much more credible.” Credibility is vital to success as paranormal researchers, Sellers said. And their team is gaining a measure of success. Their most recent investigation was of a Tuscaloosa-area mental hospital. The cousins declined to name the hospital, but Jones said the place was so active with spirits that they were “bumping into each other.” Their next job is at the Oakleigh House museum in Mobile. After that, it’s on to Charleston, S.C., where they will investigate an old jail. The cousins say they understand that not everyone believes in what they do. They have made believers out of some people, though. “All humans have (psychic) ability if they open their minds,” Jones said.

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