Most people go to the library for a book; others go for a spook. A group of six "paranormal investigators" visited the Hall County Library after hours on Friday to make contact with its ghost-in-residence. The group, which calls itself The Paranormal Science Investigations Network, travels around the area on the weekends looking to make contact with those on the "other side."
They came to the library after one of the investigators, Sherri Scaniffe, had heard about the Hall County Library ghost on the Internet.
Gail Hogan, who has worked at the library since 1990, said she's become friendly with the library ghost and calls her "Miss Elizabeth." Hogan said she greets the ghost in the morning, and says "Miss Elizabeth" has been known to turn the water back on after employees have finished washing their hands, and that she likes to play with the lights.
"I think she has a sense of humor," Hogan said.
About 7:30 p.m., the investigators arrived at the library with their equipment -- a few digital recorders, digital cameras, motion detectors and Trifield meters (meters that detect changes in electromagnetic fields) -- and set up shop.
They split up into two groups: One went upstairs and the other stayed downstairs.
Each group followed a similar procedure.
After walking through the library, the investigators went to the spots where they said they sensed paranormal activity and conducted EVP (electronic voice phenomena) sessions. In the EVP sessions, all the investigators would turn on their recorders and one person would ask questions like "What's your name?" "How old are you?" and "Are you married?", hoping for a response.
When the group did not get any concrete evidence of the ghost's presence, they moved on to another location. Dusty Ellison, one of the investigators, took pictures with his digital camera in hopes that maybe the library ghost would show up in some of the pictures.
Ellison said that sometimes the camera would pick up orbs of light that some people explain as balls of energy. Others explain the orbs of light as particles of dust that the camera's flash caught, or flying insects.
As Hogan and two of the investigators, Michelle Babiarz and Ellison, were trying to summon the ghost in the upstairs portion of the library, a hallway light turned off and immediately came back on a couple of minutes after Hogan requested that "Miss Elizabeth" turn on a light.
Hogan said the light was set on a timer to turn off, but not to come back on.
Babiarz, a co-founder of The Paranormal Science Investigations Network, said that her first instinct is to try and explain any seemingly "paranormal" activity with something concrete and rational, such as looking for a creaking fan to explain a noise.
"We're all skeptics," Babiarz said. "That's our job."
With or without their skepticism, nobody could explain the two fallen books on the floor in the children's reading area. One of them, "The Serpent Slayer," lay about three feet from its place on the shelf. No one had remembered seeing it in the earlier walk-throughs of the building.
The group wrapped up at the library around 11 p.m., but that's not the end of the investigation of the library ghost. They will review their recordings for voices and sounds, electric voice phenomena that may have been there but were not audible at the time.
For now, though, the Hall County Library's unexplained "visitor" will stay that way.
Ghost Hunters Search Library
Ghost Hunters Search Library