Everyone has their favorite local ghost stories: ghouls haunting Detroit’s Fort Wayne, a portal to hell at the old State Hospital in Traverse City, the witch’s curse on the Pere Cheney cemetery, or spirits wandering around The Whitney.
No one knows Michigan’s spooky side better than Daniel Mackin.
He’s the founder and lead investigator of the Michigan Area Paranormal Investigative Team.
Mackin sat down with Stateside’s Cynthia Canty to talk all about things that go bump in the night.
Listen to their conversation above, or read highlights below.
On the definition of ‘paranormal’
“‘Paranormal’ defined is something outside the realm of the normal. Most of what we deal with is hauntings, things like that. But paranormal can cover a wide umbrella area of different things. It can cover UFOs, it can cover Bigfoot. There’s a lot of crazy things that falls [sic] outside the realm of science.”
On the prominence of ghosts in Michigan
“Don’t be too surprised if your neighbor has a ghost story. We get called a lot. We generally do between 15 and 20 cases a year. We travel around the northern Michigan area, and a little bit beyond, so it’s a pretty vast area.”
On finding evidence of ghosts
“We did an investigation a few years ago at Ferris State in Big Rapids. We investigated their old Alumni Building and the Prakken Building, and I believe this was downstairs in the Prakken Building. There was a room down there that students would stay away from because the door would rattle and shake.”
Listen for yourself:
“And we’d just had some activity in that room where we’d heard a door slam even though we didn’t physically see a door slam. We heard footsteps. We stepped into the hallway to see if anyone was walking around out there. And this clip is actually an AVP, because it is an EVP - electronic voice phenomena - we caught it on our recorder, but I also heard this with my own ears. And as I stepped out there, I just heard somebody distinctly say, ‘Who are you?’”
Happy Halloween!
