Ghost Hunters' Talk on Paranormal Chills Spines

Ghostly images. Mysterious energy. Physical encounters. Strange faces. These were the findings put forward by a pair of state ghosthunters on Saturday on their long-time work in the field of paranormal activity.

Joseph Franke and Orlando Ferrante, founders of the Connecticut Paranormal Research Society, shared photographic images and related details of several cases they worked on over the years during a talk at the Fairfield Woods Branch Library that was attended by about 60 people.

The duo, with over 45 years of combined knowledge and experience, has established itself as one of the most prominent paranormal investigation and research teams in New England.

One of their eeriest cases occurred in Enfield in 2008 and still haunts the pair. As Ferrante related it, they were contacted by a couple who said that they had been seeing shadowy figures. A lot of the sightings and activity was centered around the their twin daughters, whom they eventually believed had a gift of seeing the paranormal. Franke and Ferrante went to check out the home.

“We went a total of five times,” Ferrante said, “but were finding no evidence to validate the claims. On that fifth visit, we set up an infrared video camera in the girls’ room and had one of our investigators shooting still shots in the hallway outside their bedroom while we worked with a psychic downstairs. The psychic managed to channel a spirit that we felt was doing all the harassing. I used religious provocation to challenge the spirit and, through the psychic, it spit in my face and laughed at us.”

Things really became intense at that point. “Shortly thereafter, our investigator was attacked upstairs,” Ferrante said. “She was physically picked up off her feet and dropped to the ground. We ran upstairs and found total chaos. As we checked on the girls, we could hear loud growling. We controlled the situation, removed everyone from the room and monitored things for the rest of the night, which was quiet.”

Going to the videotape

The investigators expected the video camera might have documented the occurrence, but discovered the tape was gone when they began packing up their equipment. It went missing for over nine months before turning up mysteriously on top of a camcorder bag.

Ferrante reviewed the tape and, to his amazement, saw an anomalous object coming out of the crib, timed about two minutes after their investigator was attacked.

A second review showed one of the girls looking very agitated and whispering “sit down” in the direction of the investigator, at which point the woman was attacked.

Ferrante said the pair wasn’t able to resolve the situation in the home. “While the homeowners were at first pursuing a course that may have allowed us to provide a house cleansing, the situation changed during the time the tape went missing. The homeowners ended up working with another paranormal group which contacted a television producer to film a paranormal episode for Animal Planet.”

The overall event still brings chills to the duo when they recollect it and, Ferrante said, “I feel the aggressive spirit there has managed to attach itself to my family through me. Let’s just say there have been some unexplainable occurrences over the past two years.”

This was just one incredible tale the pair related from their nearly lifelong experience in the field, which began for both when they were just children. In fact, Franke’s first interface came when he was 3 years old.

Earlier experiences

“My maternal grandfather and I were very close and spent a lot of time together. One night, while my parents were watching TV, I came out of my bedroom, apparently sleepwalking, and said I heard someone saying, ‘Joseph, come with me.’ Shortly thereafter, my parents got a call from my grandmother saying that my grandfather had passed away. He’d had a heart attack while sitting up reading the Bible in bed. That’s where the seed was planted that I had some kind of paranormal connection.”

Similarly, Ferrante had been surrounded by the paranormal since he was 6 years old. “I had the ability to sense spirits, see them and feel them. My mother would tell me it’s nothing, then later confessed to knowing I had a special gift and it was common to other members of the family,” he said.

Later in life, both had the opportunity to meet and work with Ed and Lorraine Warren, who were the pioneers in the paranormal field and handled such high-profile cases as the infamous Amityville, N.Y. house where Ronald DeFeo, Jr. killed his parents and four siblings in 1974.

Paranormal research socity founded

In 1995, through a mutual friend, Franke met Ferrante, and they decided to branch out on their own and formed the Connecticut Paranormal Research Society.

“We are committed to researching the unexplained and try to assist people who feel they may have paranormal disturbances,” said Franke. “A very small percentage of the cases we look into turn out to be paranormal. Often they are psychosomatic. We do a lot of upfront research and screening before we take a case.”

The pair say television doesn’t accurately represent what goes on in the field. “There’s a lot of hard work in researching and family sacrifice. We may work on a case for nights, weeks, even years. We’re about finding resolution,” said Ferrante.

They don’t profess to have all the answers but just share their experiences. “We’re like Fox News. We report, you decide.”