Ghostbusters check out Baillie House

If there’s something strange in your neighbourhood. Who ya gonna call?

Well last weekend Baillie House sent out a call, and B.C.S.P.I.R.T.S. answered.

The B.C. Society of Paranormal Investigation and Research into the Supernatural (B.C.S.P.I.R.T.S.) is a non-profit group that offers their services to people around British Columbia.

“We investigate all kinds of paranormal events,” explains Natasha Cabot, one of the members of the B.C.S.P.I.R.I.T.S. team, “not just ghosts.”

A while ago Cabot received a call from Sandy Curnow asking if they would do an investigation on the Baillie House. On Saturday the spirit team arrived in Merritt with all their equipment, ready to see what would they would discover under the cover of darkness.

Once they set up their cameras and audio equipment it became clear something was going on at Baillie House.

“There is definitely some activity there,” Cabot says. “A few interesting things happened. There were voices upstairs while we were all downstairs.”

She says it will be a while before they have all of their information together and are ready to give a report to the group at Baillie House, but she is confident something will show up.

“I call myself an open-minded skeptic,” she explains. “A lot of things can be explained – squeaks in the house, mice in the basement – but some things can’t be.”

She says in order to search for spirits and other unexplained events you have to keep an open mind.

“You have to be open to believing something is there,” she says.

Whether suspicions are disproven or confirmed, Cabot believes it is a good idea to call B.C.S.P.I.R.I.T. S. to get to the bottom of unexplained incidents.

“It sets people’s minds at ease either way,” she says, of the investigations.

She says the members of the team take their job seriously, even though it is only a hobby for all of them.

Cabot estimates they do between 12 and 20 investigations a year throughout the province. The members of the team got into exploring the unexplainable for many different reasons. For Cabot her fascination with the paranormal began when she lived in an apartment that was haunted. She was young, and it freaked her out, but it also started her passion for these investigations.

As for whether or not people should be afraid of the spirits, Cabot doesn’t believe they should be.

“I don’t think people have anything to fear,” she says. “Evil ghosts are just a Hollywood creation. I think real ghosts just don’t know they are dead.”

Cabot says B.C.S.P.I.R.I.T.S. is an interesting hobby, one she would like as career.

“It’s great to open your mind to the unexplained,” she says.