Maine Ghost Hunters

Author: MaineGhostHunters

Meet The Team

Field Investigator – Team Lead – Tony

Hello, I’m Tony L. and I’m a co-founder of Maine Ghost Hunters.

I’ve had paranormal experiences as far back as I can remember, and consider myself somewhat of a mild “sensitive”. I’m a hard core “numbers” guy so I find it’s not that hard to keep my ability on the back burner, secondary to the skeptic process of our data collection.

I believe in the ability and contributions of the psychic investigator but as a secondary approach to obtaining evidence through a more skeptic based method. It’s my opinion that the more concrete evidence we collect (hard numbers and physical evidence) the more widely accepted and respected our evidence will be perceived by the standards of skeptics and peer investigative groups, alike.

As for what I do when I’m not hunting ghosts; I’m a pre-law student in the UMaine system and a licensed FFL based in Augusta, Maine. I’m also Software Design Engineer with 20+ years experience in the technology industry. I’ve been designing software applications and systems since 1996 and have led development teams for companies such as Microsoft, Unum-Provident, and several start-up organizations. I have a passion for “the process” and rarely take my roles, responsibilities, or directives, lightly. I bring this focus and structure to the heart of the Maine Ghost Hunters organization in order to best serve each of our clients to the best of our collective ability.

MGH roles: Co-Founder, Lead Investigator, Case Management, Webmaster/Coder

Paranormal areas of interest: apparitions, spirit voices, spiritual energy, low level energies, etc…

Field Investigator – Team Lead – Kat

Hi, I’m Kat and I’m one of the Co-Founders and team leads of Maine Ghost Hunters.

I’m also a lead investigator, videographer, photographer, meetup organizer, public speaker, and team website designer.

I have a degree in Geology from the University of Maine at Farmington, and I’ve worked in the Gulf of Mexico on a couple of research vessels as a Field Geophysicist and a Geophysical Analyst. I’ve lived in quite a few haunted environments and have read too many non-fiction paranormal titles to count. I have a strong respect for the MGH skeptic-based protocol and the evidence recovery & review processes our team abides by. I also have a keen interest in the spiritual side of what we’re sometimes thrown into as a result of our investigations.

My areas of expertise for the Maine Ghost Hunters organization come in the form of EVP and Audio review, and Videography – among many others. I’m the person who’s usually behind the camera, rather than in front of it. I edit the video and make it available for public viewing, presenting key portions of investigations or events we’ve taken part in. I’m also the team lead when it comes to the day to day operations regarding the Maine Ghost Hunters organization.

You can find me on FaceBook under my personal user account, and I sometimes dabble with status updates for our Maine Ghosthunters Facebook account as well. You can also find me tweeting occasionally with our MEghosthunters account on Twitter – although I’m not the only one who does so. And last but not least, if you haven’t seen our YouTube Channel you might want to check it out. I’ve edited and uploaded a lot of video footage from our investigations, so that whole channel offers a pretty extensive introspective into what it’s like to be involved with an investigation.

MGH roles: Co-Founder, Lead Investigator, Case Manager, EVP review, Videography, Video Editing, Photography, Public Speaking, Community Outreach Organization, Meetup Team Lead, Forum Moderator, Website Design & Content Management, etc…

Paranormal areas of interest: capturing spirits on recording devices; audio, video, photo, etc…

October 21, 2022
FAQ
“Maine Ghost Hunters is a client centered organization”, what does this mean?
As a client, or potential client, you may be reading this thinking “well, of course you are, you’re providing a service for your clients, so this obviously makes you ‘client-centered’, right?” – and this assumption would make sense. However, this is not always the case when it comes to letting a paranormal investigation team into your home or professional place of business. There are many different philosophies out there in the paranormal investigation ‘field’ regarding the motivation behind why certain teams function in the manner they do, the least of which centers on the needs of the client – or even their ‘wants’. Some teams will take every single investigation request that enters their email inbox, regardless if they have the ability to meet the needs of the client by conducting the requested investigation. This is not a client-centered approach, and the client will realize this after their time has been wasted, they’ve given strangers unfettered and unsupervised access to their home or business, and their hopes for help have been replaced with confusion, frustration, and renewed uncertainty. Maine Ghost Hunters refers cases all year long. We refer cases for many reasons, including but not limited to;
Distance away from the MGH investigation core: As an example, we often receive requests for investigations from Aroostook County. As much as we’d like to be able to help, and we know we can for a lot of these requests, what would we be able to offer a client who has an emergency situation and needs us to be at their residence the next day? We’re upwards of 4 hours away from some of these investigation requests. We feel it would be doing a client in this type of situation a complete disservice to take their case knowing there is another fully qualified paranormal investigation team within 30 minutes of the location they’re asking to have investigated.
We lack the personnel needed for the level of assistance requested: If a client tells us they’re being attacked by a demon, nightly, and it’s leaving scratch marks on their body and they’re possessed by an evil spirit, we may not have the staff to properly address this situation. Taking this case would very likely wind up being at the client’s expense and may bring further detriment to their situation. Whereas, there are far too many paranormal investigators and investigation teams in action, presently, who are actively seeking these types of cases because they want to be involved in the ‘darker side’ of paranormal experiences. They aren’t focused on providing a level of service that matches their abilities as investigators. They’re actively seeking out client cases which they can use as a means to gain the personal and professional experience needed to tout themselves as “demon hunters”, and similar. They’re using clients to build their professional experience portfolio. It goes without saying there’s an ethical component regarding investigators conducting business in this manner. More importantly, for those clients who have legitimately concerning paranormal activity – this manner of behavior puts the client at additional risk of potential detriment.
The client location is not interested in having us share our collected evidence and experiences with the public. This is not a hard and fast rule for us, by the way. We do have client cases we accept – and sometimes seek out – that forbid us from sharing our evidence publicly. However, there are cases we refer to other teams for this reason and we’ll tell you why. Maine Ghost Hunters takes peer review of evidence very seriously. We’re a skeptic-based group, not a ‘science’ based group, but we strive to reach a healthy degree of ‘scientific’ based, rational, reasoning when reviewing our evidence. That said, we adhere to a protocol, and a standard, that results in evidence that survives the test of time. We feel it’s our duty to share these protocols, standards, and results with our peers so we can all learn from our mutual processes and the results of those processes. This is what helps the paranormal community learn and grow, and it’s also what helps us all become better at what we do. It’s due to this philosophy that, as members of Maine Ghost Hunters, we see ourselves more as students – than teachers. We’re beyond flattered to have a seat at the table as contributing members of the conversation.
We’re unavailable for reasons of scheduling conflicts, low staff-number availability, and/or we’ve maxed out our investigation commitments and feel we couldn’t give the requested case the attention it would deserve should it need to be addressed on a long term basis, etc…
What does it mean when MGH defines itself as a group of ‘skeptic believers’?
Maine Ghost Hunters is comprised of members who believe in the existence of paranormal activity. If you think about it long and hard enough you might reason it in a similar way we do; “why would we hunt for something we don’t believe exists?”. We wouldn’t. Would you? That said, we also aren’t in the habit of calling something ‘paranormal’ without obtaining the evidence to back up that claim. So it’s absolutely fair to say that MGH is a skeptic based organization which relies heavily on our audio recorders to capture spirit voices whenever possible, and our video cameras to record any physical phenomena which takes place during investigations. Physical phenomena can be anything from observing shadows that don’t belong to anyone in the room, the moving of objects, or the manipulation of our investigation tools by use of surrounding energy fields. We use all kinds of different tools to detect spirit interaction. Some are quite simple, such as hanging string from the ceiling with a single jingle bell tied to the bottom, and some are very complex such as our FLIR thermal imaging camera which is used to detect heat differentials in the environment. Any tool we can use that will allow our clients to observe the paranormal phenomena we record is a tool we consider a valuable asset in our equipment arsenal.
Do most of your paranormal interactions involve a spirit who was once a person?
Yes, and it’s because of this very reason we treat every spiritually active location with a level of sensitivity and respect similar to how we’d conduct ourselves if we were dealing with a living person trapped in a very personally stressful situation. MGH team leadership often reminds fellow team members to ‘treat every spirit like your grandmother’; with sensitivity, genuine care, compassion, and empathy.
The Maine Ghost Hunters investigation approach assumes that spirits are causing issues to get the attention of ‘the living’ in a manner that may seem frightening, or even destructive, because they’re unable to communicate in any other way. Our philosophy includes the belief that a frustrated spirit is similar to a frustrated person. If any one of us ‘living’ people were to stand in a room with other living people, day in and day out, and no one could see us, hear us, talk to us, or feel our emotional reach for ‘connection’ we would become very frustrated very quickly. We might go to great lengths to be recognized as being present. When spirit activity is approached in this manner it becomes a much more fluent experience in terms of communication. Even if we can’t seem to hear or see them, they can hear and see us trying to hear and see them, and this – in our experience – has made a world of difference for a number of clients and their spiritually active locations.
Why does MGH investigate the paranormal?
To help our clients make sense of what’s going on in their spiritually active environment
To help facilitate communication between client and spirit presence
To bring relief, understanding, and a sense of ease to clients regarding the paranormal activity they fear, find disturbing, or are curious about.
To learn more about ‘paranormal’, in general. To garner new experiences that will help us become better paranormal investigators. The more we learn the better prepared we are to help future clients. Every new case prepares us for the next. If you’ve had an investigation done by Maine Ghost Hunters you’ve benefited from the graciousness, generosity, and trust given to us by every client we’ve served before you. It really is a community effort, and we couldn’t be more thankful for that part of the MGH experience.
To collect new data for the direct purpose of researching, studying, and getting better at what we do. It’s similar to the above written sentiment, which is client-centered, but this angle is more about our stance on peer-review, evidentiary responsibility, and furthering the limits of where paranormal investigations can ethically, and rationally, expand.
Will you review my evidence for me?
We get this question a lot. Maine Ghost Hunters has a very strict policy regarding our data collection protocol. There are far too many unknowns for us to consider while reviewing evidence we’re uncertain of, regarding how it was collected, the circumstances it was collected, or the state of the environment in which it was collected. It is because of this that we graciously decline requests to review evidence we weren’t a party to collecting.
Maine Ghost Hunters simply does not have the time, nor the man power available, to review all of the evidence we’re requested to analyze in any given month.
Can I go on a ghost hunt with you?
Maine Ghost Hunters occasionally hosts public ghost hunting experiences which we invite non-team members to participate. In the past, each event has come with a participation fee ranging from $30 to upwards of $100+, depending on the location, the price we incur renting the location, the objective of the event (fundraising for a cause, the team, or an outside organization, et al… ), and other considerations that vary according to the specific circumstances surrounding the locale of the ghost hunt. These hunts are often advertised on our Meetup.com account, through social media (Twitter, Facebook, the MGH website, etc…), and sometimes at the location of the hunt, itself.
What equipment do you use on your investigations?
MGH utilizes a wide range of tools to conduct our investigations, but the most dependable to us have always been our audio and video recording devices and the software to analyze the data we collect with these devices.
What is the most paranormally active location you’ve investigated?
This question comes to us so often you might think we’d have an answer already prepared for the occasion, but the truth is… we don’t. We’ve investigated a couple of private residences, a number of times, which really impressed us with the sheer number of Class-A EVPs and real-time spiritual interaction we experienced, but there are also a few public access locations that have left us equally impressed. Some of the public locations we can mention would be the Portland Head Light Keeper’s Quarters (it’s a museum), the Gardiner Library, Lakewood Theater, and Fort Western in Augusta.
October 20, 2022
Mission and Goals

Mission Statement

The Maine Ghost Hunters mission is to share our passion and knowledge for local history and spiritually active environments.

Our team assesses locations for paranormal activity with a primary approach via a skeptically based method and, when available, a secondary approach via a “sensitive” or psychic based method. If paranormal activity is found we will do our best to resolve the situation in a way that is acceptable to those involved, while prioritizing the best interests of our clients at all times.

Extended Mission Statement

Who are we? We’re a group of members with varying degrees of skill and knowledge in our individual areas of primary interest. Technically speaking, we have a solid knowledge-base regarding the hardware and software components used in our investigations. Each of our members have studied for years regarding matters of the paranormal, either by the written word, casual personal experience, or organized “group” investigations. Maine Ghost Hunters investigators are well versed in the attraction, dangers, and awe of the paranormal – and the unknown. We’re fully educated, equipped, and prepared to deal with those concerns on behalf of our clients.
What separates our team from other respected paranormal investigation groups in the State of Maine? We offer support that exceeds the singularly focused task of simply giving you our opinion on whether or not your home is haunted. We aren’t solely at your service for a paranormal investigation; we’re at your service to help you come to terms with the realities of why you sought our assistance in the first place. Our goals are to collect data to the best of our ability on your behalf; to offer that data to you in a way you can understand and best handle emotionally, spiritually, and psychologically; and to help you come to a resolution that suits your needs as an individual, family, or group.
Maine Ghost Hunters places skeptic-based methods and means ahead of psychic intervention because we know, all too well, that the logical physical-facts approach, is very likely how you live your day-to-day life. We engage our services on your behalf with the understanding that if you were open to imploring the skills of a psychic you wouldn’t be asking our skeptic-based organization to verify, with collected data and evidence, whether or not your home, or the environment in question, contains paranormal activity. Plainly spoken in MGH terms; “the ‘psychic validates the skeptic” not the other way around, which leaves little room for clients, peer groups, and the “profession” as a whole, to question the validity of our findings. The audio and visual evidence we present to you will almost certainly withstand; the tests of time, fads of future ghost hunting procedures, peer review, and paranormal skepticism, alike.
If we can meet all of these standards for you, to the best of our collective ability, then we can consider our involvement in your paranormal experience to be “a job well done”.

October 19, 2022
About Maine Ghost Hunters

Welcome to the online presence of the Maine Ghost Hunters organization.
Maine Ghost Hunters is a 100% volunteer organization, meaning we aren’t paid for our paranormal investigations and there are absolutely no fees attached to any of the ghost hunting services we provide. Our team has a deep & genuine interest in the history of Maine (and New England), and we express our passion for this subject through our interactions & engagements as historic researchers and paranormal investigators. We realize the past sometimes reaches into the present. The phenomena fascinates us, and we enjoy sharing our excitement for that fascination with you.

What’s On Our Website?

If you’ve come to our website, chances are you’re interested in what we’ve been up to and what sort of “evidence” we’ve uncovered during our team’s paranormal research and investigation ventures. If so, you’re in luck, because we’ve collected a wide variety of audio & video clips during our investigations we think you might find interesting. Our investigation schedule can get pretty active throughout any given year, so whenever it’s feasible to share our findings with you we jump at the chance and, whenever possible, we incorporate those findings into our evidence gallery and video showcase.

October 18, 2022
Membership Information
The MGH membership application process is currently closed.

We receive “requests for membership” from interested persons on a routine basis and while we’d love to add new members regularly, this just isn’t possible. We will undoubtedly open the application process again in the future, so if you think you might be interested we offer the following considerations:
When Maine Ghost Hunters begins the process of accepting membership requests our first concern for potential applicants is whether or not their submitted skill-set can fill a void within the MGH organization.
Are you a great investigator? Super. But we already have a core team of highly qualified investigators. MGH has no current openings for our investigation team, nor do we ever for entry-level membership.
Maine Ghost Hunters is a client-centered organization. This means our primary concern is not the investigation of haunted locations, but the clients that live or work within these haunted locations. It’s because of this we find solid reasoning for extensive training of new members to our non-investigative processes and protocols long before we consider bringing any particular team member into the fold of our investigation core.
We are very well aware that people join paranormal investigation groups to go on ghost hunts in client locations, but Maine Ghost Hunters doesn’t consider this approach to be client-centered. We consider this approach to be ‘ghost hunter’ centered, and this is an unnecessary risk to our clients, a concern which MGH team leadership is simply not willing to compromise. If someone joins the Maine Ghost Hunters ranks they’re doing so primarily because they have the skills to meet the needs of our clients; not primarily to go on ghost hunts. This is often a turn-off for individuals inquiring to join our ranks, and that’s exactly why this is an MGH standard. We establish from the start, with potential incoming members, that Maine Ghost Hunters is highly protective of our clients, their privacy, and safety, and we will not waiver in our commitment to uphold these essential values.
Support staff positions MGH is routinely looking to fill when we open our ‘new member’ application process:

Historical Researcher
Case Management
Investigation Location Scouts & Location Researchers

Potential candidates of above positions will possess the following skill set(s):
A strong personal interest and experiential foundation of historical research regarding the state of Maine and the New England region.
Ability to propose qualified investigation locations on a regular and routine basis, while providing thoroughly researched documentation supporting each suggested location.
Savvy interpersonal skills and a penchant for communicating clearly, regularly, and routinely with MGH Team Leadership.
Self starter with initiative and goal based directives for the task(s) at hand.

The above criteria is just a wordy way of saying we value applicants who thirst for experiencing Maine state history first-hand, and who are equally as excited to engage in paranormal investigation opportunities from inception (ex. research and documentation, location scouting, proposing location suggestions) to completion (evidentiary review, client presentation, closing cases) with a primary motivation to help propel Maine Ghost Hunters in a forward direction.
Investigator-Track applicants will have the following before applying

Experience with evidence collection (being on a paranormal investigation team previously is not a requirement)
Experience with audio collection, review and picking out valid EVPs
Solid experience with at least 1 dependable audio software program for use with EVP review.
Must prove proficiency with software program and audio hardware
The ability and desire to dedicate a minimum of 2 weekend days each month for investigations.
The ability and desire to dedicate the time required to review collected audio evidence a minimum of 2x.
For every 2 hours of audio, 4 hours of review is necessary.
The ability and desire to dedicate 1 additional weekend day per month for team evidence review and/or team meeting day.
The ability, desire, and interest to take part in MGH outreach programs such as our podcast, and our in-person MeetUp group gatherings.
An area of expertise, be it personal, occupational, or otherwise, which will help bring depth to our organization.
(Examples: writing, photography, marketing, artistry, evp review, historical research, etc…) .
The solid understanding that all MGH team members are non-investigator support staff/team specialists first & foremost – and that support staff/team specialist duties and responsibilities are of primary importance to the Maine Ghost Hunters organization.
An ability and desire to participate in team research projects, on a regular basis.

The Maine Ghost Hunters “team member” experience is all encompassing. It is not a hobby, nor is it a “club” anyone is able to join simply because they have interest in paranormal and a little time on their hands. MGH’s presence in our communities is focused on client needs, not investigation experiences. It is taxing on our time, money, and resources and our clients are blessed to know that every active member of Maine Ghost Hunters is excited to be a part of it. “New member” applicants should already share this passion for our team mentality and expect a fully involved – time consuming, challenging, and task oriented – team member experience before considering whether or not they will be a good fit within our group dynamic.
It’s a lot to ask from members of a volunteer organization, we know this and we fully understand if you find it a bit much for the level of involvement you’re willing to dedicate.

Much of the experience listed above can be obtained by participating in public paranormal investigation opportunities. We suggest looking into public access locations in your area that host ‘ghost hunting’ experiences. There are many groups offering these experiences which use social media, like Facebook, to advertise their paranormal events. Be sure to know what your investigation fee is going to fund, as ghost hunters helping to raise donations for historic locations are serving a different population – and end-goal – than those who are pocketing your fee after they pay for the venue they’re renting to host the ghost hunt.
The MGH membership application process is currently closed.
October 8, 2022