THE GHOST HUNTERS

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33579, 6 July 1974, Page 11

THE GHOST HUNTERS

It louKea like the perfect setting for a ghostly get - together. The cold night wind howled through broken windows and old timbers creaked in the darkness. In the distance, a church clock chimed midnight.

But any spook who decided to glide into the cen-turies-old farmhouse the night I was there would hav*e got the shock of his after-life.

in the draughty hall three men, huddled in overcoats, were surrounded by scientific equipment. There were cameras on tripods and costly taperecorders on upturned boxes. Microphones dangled in inglenooks and photoelectric snares covered every doorway.

At thirty-minute intervals two of us toured the house, testing electronic traps, checking equipment, and recording room temperature from a dozen carefully positioned thermometers.

“temperature drop almost invariably accompanies ghostly phenomena,” said Arthur Deedrick Clark, a teacher by day and a ghost hunter by night. ‘Serious business’

Ghost hunting is a serious business, as I discovered during my investigations. Gone are the days when young men spent nights in haunted houses for a bet, supported only by a lantern and a bottle of whisky. Today’s watchers take a host of costly and sensitive scientific • equipment for company, and note down everything with the object-