Ghost Hunting

The United States is haunted by the ghosts of many dead Americans—or, perhaps, by intimations of a past that refuses to stay hidden even as the country tries to forget. These hauntings range from the modest appearance of “white ladies” who pace the parlors and staircases of houses where they once lived bourgeois lives, to the brusque touch of miners, angered that their places of work have long been shut down, to the sounds and smells of the great battles of the Civil War, playing endlessly in the night in closed national parks. Real estate agents in famously haunted areas like New Orleans advertise some properties as “haunted” on their signs, and ghost tourism has become a second, and welcome, evening revenue stream in cities all around the U. S. Out of this haunted landscape has arisen a new hobby or vocation (and, in a few instances, profession): paranormal research, also known as ghost hunting. While many older “ghost hunters” trace the origins of their interest in the paranormal back to the popular 1960s-70s author Hans Holzer, most contemporary “ghost groups” model themselves on the 21st-century television phenomenon “Ghost Hunters” and other para-TV stars. These television programs opened up a space of ghostly interest for Americans—particularly white, working class Americans—and introduced their audiences to current technologies and rituals of paranormal research. Suddenly, anybody able to assemble a ghost hunting kit of digital recorder, camera and flashlight could begin their own paranormal explorations.