PARANORMAL INVESTIGATIONS IN THE UPSTATE—

The Spartanburg Paranormal and Apparition Responders (SPAR) spend their nights investigating areas in and around Spartanburg to prove that paranormal activity exists. SPAR defines paranormal activity as anything that cannot be explained with scientific methods. The investigators have explored graveyards as close to Wofford as Magnolia Cemetery.

“We’re just a group of friends with a common goal: investigate the paranormal and introduce it into the normal world. We hope to spread awareness of the world we do not see,” says SPAR.

A privately funded group, SPAR members are parents who spend weekends at their kids’ volleyball tournaments and the early hours of the morning talking to spirits in supposedly haunted places. The founders, Andrea and Meagan, claim to be mediums who can see and speak with spirits (last names redacted). The other members of the group are being trained to communicate with spirits, and Andrea’s husband runs the group’s Facebook page. When they receive a call to investigate, they gather their resources and attempt to either prove or debunk any paranormal activity.

“We have two digital video cameras, one has night vision, one doesn’t; two digital cameras for pictures; a Mel Meter and a K-2 meter, both of which detect spirit energy; digital recorders in case something is trying to communicate and we can’t hear it with our ears alone; a Ghost Box that scans AM and FM radio frequencies that a spirit can talk through and answer questions; a grid laser, so if anything walks through it we can see it in the grid; and an Ovilus II, which picks up words that spirits want to tell us. The Ovilus picks up the word the spirit wants to say, and it comes up on a screen and also voices the word. And last but not least, flashlights so we can see where we are going,” says Andrea.

All of these items can be purchased online at GhostStop. With this equipment, SPAR attempts to interact with spirits, which SPAR says can manifest as floating orbs or as human apparitions. For them, the best way to anticipate paranormal activity is to know the signs of it.

“It could be anything from feeling like you are being watched to the hairs standing up on the back of your neck, sudden changes in temperature, to actually seeing an apparition or hearing voices or being touched,” says Andrea. In Magnolia Cemetery, SPAR recorded an interaction between the group and the supposed spirits that were speaking into the Ovilus. The Ovilus spoke the word “human” three separate times. It then picked up the word kiss.

“That’s a great band, dude,” Meagan says, “for the ghost that wanted to know.”

The group members also claimed that spirits drained their phone and camera batteries. The videos of the investigation are currently posted on YouTube, titled SPAR Investigation: Magnolia Street Cemetery, Spartanburg, SC. In addition to Magnolia Cemetery, SPAR has explored other Spartanburg locations such as Hell’s Gate, graveyards in Boiling springs and an assortment of private homes.

“We have encountered everything from major demons to friendly child spirits and everything in between,” says SPAR of their work in Spartanburg.

Spartanburg has several locations that have attracted other groups investigating paranormal activity. Converse College is haunted by at least five ghosts according to South Carolina Paranormal Research and Investigation (SCPRAI). The SCPRAI website describes sightings of a woman in a white dress running through Pell Hall. The woman is supposedly the ghost of a student who jumped to her fiancé from a window but died when he failed to catch her. SPAR is open to investigating any kind of case, and they do all of their investigations free of charge.