Catherine Duncan, one of the people under the bridge tonight, founded the Trail’s End Paranormal Society of Oregon in 2002.  Short, hippy, with bunned hair and the high-pitched but scratchy voice of a life smoker, Catherine bears an uncanny resemblance to Zelda Rubinstein, the actress who played the clairvoyant in Spielberg Poltergeist series.  After earning a certificate in paranormal investigation through an on-line course at Flamel College, which specializes in such “esoteric arts and hermetic sciences” as tarot reading and yoga, she orchestrated a team of ghost hunters to investigate claims of paranormal activity in her resident state of Oregon.  TEPS collects and analyzes data and then researches the history of a site, such as the Oregon City bridge.  Disregarded by the mainstream scientific community as pseudoscience relying on anecdotal, irreproducible experimentation that apes the methods of real science, parapsychology persists as an amateur pursuit.  There is a paranormal society in just about every state and for each society a catchy acronym: along with TEPS, there’s a TIPS, a TAPS, AGHOST, APART, a NYPAPS, and an R.I.P., a.k.a Researchers into the Paranormal. 

In Oregon alone, at least six ghost-hunting groups advertise services and report findings on artfully designed Web sites.  They define ghost-hunter terms and display ghost-hunter data gathered from investigations.  The data TEPS analyze includes unnatural temperature changes, recordings of disembodied voices (EVPs) and unexplainable electromagnetic field meter spikes.   To analyze collected data, TEPS members attempt to debunk findings by looking for environmental explanations – a light source creating a ghostly shadow in a picture, for example, or a strong surge of electricity on EMF readers caused by power lines.  To avoid false EVPs, they identify noises as they conduct investigations – a whisper, a train, a passerby.  They examine digital images of orbs, unexplainable shadows, vortexes, disembodied heads/faces, movement of inanimate objects and ectoplasm, which TEPS defines as a mist caused when the extreme cold of a spirit hits our atmosphere.  TEPS does not charge when they investigate businesses or private residences, which they do several times a month.   And while several members are religious, TEPS does not affiliate with any one faith and welcomes both believers and skeptics on investigations.

Shannon is a true believer.  Despite her bad chest cold, she left her six-year-old son with a sitter, borrowed gas money and drove two hours north from Eugene to attend tonight’s walkabout with the Oregon City chapter of TEPS. The president “pro-tem” – until elections in June – of the Lane/Linn County chapter, Shannon fits the profile she offers of a paranormal investigator. “Usually it’s women, not very high incomes,” she says on the phone one night.  She wants to get me a copy of the Ghost Hunter Profile PowerPoint slide show another member presented at a TEPS meeting earlier in the year. Women tend be more intuitive, she explains.  When sharpened, she believes, intuition enables communication with spirits. “As far as not having enough money, some of us have had experiences in places where it didn’t feel right.  Now if you had money, you could just move, right?”  More sensitive men tend to take interest in paranormal investigation as well.  Men like John, who as a five-year-old had several imaginary friends, including a nice elderly lady who would carry him in mid-air and tuck him into bed.  She stood at the window and cried when his family moved away seven years later.  John believes she was the ghost of the woman who inhabited the house before his family lived there.

 John stands at the top of the stairwell with Catherine, out of earshot from Koni and Shannon.  “Are you by yourself here?  Do you miss your family?”  Shannon asks Charlie, who he thinks answers yes.  “Yeah, I would sure miss them too.  Would you like to go to a place where they are?  We need to finish this move.  Do you know about Jesus?  A little bit, not too much.  Did you used to go to church?  A little bit.  Did you used to go to Sunday school?  A little bit.  Did your mommy and daddy used to read to you out of the bible?  Okay, I know there are a lot of things you don’t understand.  There are a lot of things I don’t understand.”