Ghost story settings are not relegated to just Halloween — they are liable to occur year-round, every day at any hour or minute. The real ghost stories are not something fantasized in films like a “Ghostbusters” or “Blair Witch Project.” In Paulding County, there are numerous strange incidents and sightings that make you do a double-take or pay closer attention as to if what you see and hear are just random sounds in the darkness, or something else that cannot be legibly explained.

The Paulding Paranormal Society works to guide us through the three places of interest in the county, a house, an old Civil War battle site, and a graveyard, each of all that have recorded possible supernatural occurrences.

“Just because you go on a ghost hunt will not guarantee you will find anything,” said Billy Engler, lead investigator for PPS, “Real evidence is very rare.”

A supernatural occurrence can not be proven nor disproved. There is no exact benchmark dedicated to determine if an event is in fact caused by forces beyond general human understanding. That is not to dispel the entire notion that strange things to happen in places with tumultuous histories. First location is a current residence in Hiram at an undisclosed address out of maintaining discretion for the current tenant.

This house has experienced several supernatural occurrences. In that house, it was a site of two deaths, a married couple. The husband died first and then the wife was slain by being crushed under her husband’s casket. A sighting occurred involving a large, black shadow speeding through the woods near the house.

Using a device that scans frequency channels continuously on FM, frequency modulation, and AM, amplitude modulation, to directly communicate with the entities, both Engler and Chris Alan, another lead investigator, were able to record three distinct “voices,” or a pattern of abnormal sounds that form words and short phrases with a considerable amount of dread and near anger tone. The voices included shouts of profanity and graphic death threats. These “voices” or random noises are most likely, according to Engler and Alan, to occur over AM frequencies. Alan additionally stressed that on any investigation, there must be a group consensus on declarations of what they find, or do not find per location.

The second notable location, the ravine known as “Hell Hole” at Pickett’s Mill has much history being a Civil War battle zone on May 27, 1864, holding a death toll of 2,100 combined Union and Confederate soldiers, seeing an outnumbered Confederate army win the battle.

Apparently, there was a violent thunderstorm that turned the sky black as the wounded Union soldiers escaped into a ravine, the “Hell Hole.” To this day, people have been known to hear the groans of excruciating pain from the ravine and heard a sound reminiscent of a raging battle.

There are also allegations of sighting an odd array of lights and apparitions of the slain soldiers running through woods or walking down the roadways near the battle site. One tragic event took place in April 1976 involving a plane crash in neighboring New Hope which resulted from a sudden thunderstorm that killed 73 people on the plane, seven people in their vehicles at the time, and one person whom was at a store. The plane collided into gas pumps and came to a stop in the “Hell Hole” ravine.

The final destination was from looks alone a prime feeding ground for paranormal activity. The White Oak Springs Church’s original cemetery was a small patch of land on the side of the road with some makeshift crosses erected from the ground to mark grave sites. There are a noted 100 persons to be buried in the visible graveyard, however, the actual amount of persons buried may extend into the adjacent forest. The history of this site was that the original church burned down. The PPS has had noted occurrences in this area as well.

“One night we had a member standing next to one of the trees who was dropped to the ground suddenly,” said Engler, “They felt someone or something pushing her down.”

The investigators have recorded odd sounds that speak of screams, warnings that may or may not allude to the church burning, and also have picked up scents of burning. One sighting record involves a figure resembling a woman in a white gown, referred by the PPS as “The Lady in White,” kneeling down by a headstone in the cemetery. There are also sightings of another named ghoul known only as “Old Jack” whom was spotted next to a tree.

The PPS prefers to classify the specters that they encounter, rather than one blanket term. A spirit is what appears to resemble the person as if they were still living. Second, the ghosts are mischievous and negative by nature, usually a spawn from a traumatic life or event of death. Thirdly, the poltergeists are more negative in energy than ghosts and are unsure of whether they were human or inhuman in their current state. Finally, the demon is a specter that targets one person though other persons in immediate area will feel effects of the demon presence, include paranoia and cold temperature change.

The group offers their services of investigation free of charge.

The types of specters that the PPS encounter are demons. Nevertheless, a haunting cannot be scientifically proven nor can they be disproven.

Be wary not to consider every twig snapping or knock of wood to be a ghoul on your trail, however you never can tell what is going on in the shadows.

Information: Paulding Paranormal Society, (404) 578-7236. E-mail at questions@pauldingparanormal.com.