An Evening with S.I.T.E., Tallahassee's Newest Ghost Hunters

I recently spent a moonlit Friday night sitting on the ground of a Tallahassee cemetery communicating with ghosts. I was in the company of Tallahassee's newest group of ghost hunters called S.I.T.E., Supernatural Investigations/Technical Evaluations.

I've always wanted to believe in ghosts, the supernatural and life in the afterworld but my scientific background needs proof to make me a believer. And so on a cliché overcast night, my friend Michele and I met up with Anna Rowe and Michael Berrios, founders of S.I.T.E., and spent the evening in a small, abandoned cemetery on Tallahassee's south side.

Who is S.I.T.E. and What Do They Do?
"We're social workers for the dead," Anna told us as she explained what S.I.T.E. does and why they do it. They're paranormal investigators and it's about helping people, both living and dead through listening to what the ghosts say and educating the living.

S.I.T.E.'s focus is on the science and art of ghost hunting and not the entertainment value, that's why they do this on a volunteer basis. The group evaluates homes and businesses free of charge and keeps investigations confidential. They perform investigations in and around Tallahassee, Florida's Big Bend Area and South Georgia.

Once they complete an assessment, S.I.T.E. offers advice to the living so they can peacefully co-exist with the non-living. Anna explained, if "a child is haunting a house, set a place setting at the table...to make him feel part of the family."

Anna, a Tallahassee, Fla. native, has been studying and researching communicating with the dead since she was 12. At age 16, she began electronic voice phenomena (EVP), the act of capturing sounds not audible by humans. Now in her mid-twenties, she's teamed up with Michael, a native New Yorker. Since January of this year, the duo has been communicating with Tallahassee area ghosts in cemeteries, homes and other haunts.

These Tallahassee ghost hunters specialize in EVP and capture sounds with traditional and digital voice recorders and video and still cameras. S.I.T.E. doesn't claim to be experts but explain there really aren't any experts in the ghost hunting field, since much of it is unknown.

Anna and Michael are a perfect match. Anna is a bit more grounded and in tune with Mother Earth and her surroundings. Michael is a self-described skeptic and tech guy. Both analyze and re-analyze data to reach a conclusion. When something cannot be explained, it's attributed to the paranormal.

It Really Wasn't Creepy Sitting in a Cemetery Near Midnight
Prior to heading into the Tallahassee cemetery, Michael prepped us on the rules, "no smoking and no whispering." The whispering compromises the recordings and could be interpreted as paranormal activity.

Anna announced to the ghosts who we were and our intentions. She asked, "If we are not welcomed, please show us a sign." We stood in the dark silence and I looked around, waiting for a bolt of lighting to strike but nothing happened and we proceeded with our paranormal investigation.

Michele was given a pair of divining rods (made by snipping a wire coat hanger in half) which react to energy. She held one in each hand, holding them upright. I was handed a ghost detector, scientifically called an Electro Magnetic Field (EMF) detector, which was a little sensor I held in my right hand, attached with a thin cord to a hand-held meter in my left hand. Whenever energy touched the detector, the meter lit up and fluctuated (twice the meter flashed, but I think it was because it touched my camera). Anna sat by a tree with an audio recorder calling out various words, hoping to trigger emotion with the ghosts and capture anything they said. Michael, armed with his video recorder and camera, wandered through the dark cemetery snapping photos which later revealed energy orbs (ghosts show up as orbs in photos, I always thought those round things were water droplets or dust specks on my camera lens).

If I had not been there to witness what I had seen, I would not have believed the events of the evening. Throughout the night, Michele's divining rods moved freely and I followed her around, waving my detector hoping to pick up something. Michele and Anna were communicating with a ghost and it guided us throughout the dark cemetery. Every now and then, a cool breeze and chills crawled my skin. A fluke during a hot and humid Tallahassee night or was something really there?

The most amazing part of the evening was when we sat on the floor of the small Tallahassee cemetery and one of Michele's divining rods spun wildly. I leaned over to see if there was any possible way for her to be turning the rod and from what I saw, there was no physical explanation. She burst into laughter, followed by sadness and later said she felt the sensation of "being tickled" then "tragedy."

That concluded our two-hour visit to the cemetery and interaction with the Tallahassee ghosts. Michael said the two hours of recordings could take up to a week to analyze. I've listened to some of the results and felt a little creepy, yet curious, knowing there was something else there. After all, it wasn't creepy sitting in the middle of a Tallahassee cemetery near midnight. I keep thinking of what Michael shared, a favorite saying of his grandmother, "Fear the living and not the dead."

Wanted, a Few Good Tallahassee Ghost Hunters
Interested in being a Tallahassee ghost hunter? S.I.T.E. is recruiting members to join the group. Remember, this is a hobby and the group does not charge a fee for their services. Ideal ghost hunters are either grounded with the Earth or total skeptics. Visit the organizations Web site at www.thesitegroup.org

Importantly, Anna wants potential S.I.T.E. members to understand, "The art of ghost hunting isn't about thrill seeking, becoming famous or even catching that one piece of evidence that turns skeptics into believers. It's the selfless endeavor of helping mankind better understand and cope with the supernatural."